This collection is presumed to have belonged to Arnolda Lovise (Hansen) Almblad. Almblad was a Norwegian national who first came to Northern China and Inner Mongolia in 1916 as a missionary with the Norwegian organization, Tsjilimissionen [The Zhili Mission]. During this time she met, and later married, Anton Felix Almblad. Anton Felix Almblad was a Swedish-speaking Finnish national who worked as a sub-agent for the British & Foreign Bible Society in the Inner-Mongolian city of Kalgan (known today in Chinese as Zhangjiakou) from 1913 until his death in 1945. Following the death of her husband, Arnolda spent time in China, Norway, Taiwan, and the United States. Arolda died in early 1970. The collection includes photographs of Anton Felix Almblad, Arnolda Lovise (Hansen) Almblad, Anna Lundberg, Ultji Baijar, Joel Eriksson, Daste Tjub, Stuart Gunzel, and Otto Christensen.
The Swedish Mongolian Mission was founded in Sweden in 1897, and in 1898 began sending missionaries throughout Northern China and Mongolia. It was not until 1910 that the Swedish Mongolian Mission missionary presence in Inner Mongolia became permanent and lasting. Hallong Osso was the first permanent mission station, it lasted from 1908 to 1927. Later, several additional ones were added: Urga (1919-1924), Golchaggan (1922-1943), Dojen (1924-1942) and Hattin Sum (1927-1944). Functions of stations included medical services, Christian schools, and orphanages.
In 1924, the Mongolian People's Republic was founded. During this governance transition, the Swedish missionaries were driven out of the Urga mission station. From 1924-1944 the other mission stations located in Inner Mongolia remained active. In 1944 the missionaries were forced to leave by the occupying Japanese army.
The Mongolian Missions collection consists of three boxes containing religious and educational materials, as well as several hundred photographs, presumed to have belonged to Arnolda Almblad. The collection is divided into two series. Series 1: Printed Materials, contains texts. Some of the texts were published by the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Swedish Mongol Mission Press, and the Russian-Mongolian Publishing Company dating from 1913 to 1927. Series 2: Photographs, contains photographs depicting the life of Scandinavian missionaries in Inner-Mongolia in the early 20th century.
Several scholars, including Victor Thibout and Professor Toba Baikal of Oberlin University in Tokyo, Japan, provided our archivists with translations and identified individuals and places depicted in some of the photographs. This information has greatly influenced the content of this finding aid and we are grateful for their contributions.
This collection is available for research.
[Name of document, date.] Mongolian Missions collection, MSS.014. University of Puget Sound Archives & Special Collections. Tacoma, Washington.
The Archives & Special Collections, University of Puget Sound, provides access to its collections to support educational, personal, and non-commercial use. Some materials in these collections may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law. Copyright laws protect published as well as unpublished materials. It is the user's responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or any other use restrictions when publishing or otherwise disseminating materials found in the collections. Physical property rights reside with the Archives & Special Collections, University of Puget Sound. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, please consult the Archives & Special Collections.
This series contains printed materials created between 1913 and 1927. The majority of the materials are religious texts written in Mongolian, Tibetan, and Chinese.
The titles of the printed materials in this finding aid were translated from their original languages to English by scholar Victor Thibout. Thibout also provided the individual descriptions for the materials. Regarding the translations, Thibout writes,
"Please note that the transliteration system used in this finding aid to identify the titles of Mongolian books in the Roman alphabet is widely used among Mongolists, but it differs from the system used by the Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/mongolia.pdf, accessed February 2022). The main differences are the three letters rendered below as ö, ü and ɣ (the Greek letter gamma), which in the Library of Congress system are rendered by ȯ, u̇ and ġ respectively. The translations below also include two phonetical variations of the letter c (respectively, c and č ), which the Library of Congress system does not distinguish."
The title of this text in Mongolian is: Amuɣulang-i oluɣsan jangjün-u ulamjilal.
This text is a Mongolian translation of "The Story of Naaman," published by the Swedish Mongol Mission Press at their mission station in Hallong Osso in 1926. It was likely translated from the Mandarian Chinese version titled "Biography of the General Who Obtained Bliss," written by Irish missionary Charles Frederick Hogg of the China Inland Mission.
The title of this text in Mongolian is: Boɣda Činggis qaɣan-u čidig.
This text was published in 1927 by the Mongolian Books Office, located in Peking, China. The Mongolian Books Office was owned by Temgetü, a Mongolian citizen of the Republic of China, and operated between 1924 and 1933. The logo of the Mongolian Books Office appears on the back cover of this text.
This calendar is written in Mongolian and Chinese.
The title of this text in Mongolian is: Mosi-yin genesis kemegči nigedüger nom.
This book was published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in Shanghai, China, in 1913.
The title of this text in Mongolian is: Orčilang-tu yirtiecü-yin bayidal-i tobčilan üjegülügsen terigün debter.
This text was written by Tsyben Zhamtsarano and published by the Russian-Mongolian Publishing House in 1918. Altogether, the book consisted of three volumes and was used as a high school textbook in autonomous Outer-Mongolia in 1923.
The title of this text in Mongolian is: Tegri-yin jam-iyar ayalan yabuqu-yin tokiyaldulɣ-a kemekü bičig-ün orusil.
This text is a version of John Bunyan's novel "The Pilgrim's Progress: From This World to That Which Is to Come," first published in 1678. It was translated into Mongolian by Gendun and Daste Tjub, who worked for the Swedish Mongol Mission Press. They began working on the translation in 1920 and the text was printed by the Swedish Mongol Mission Press at their mission station in Hallong Osso in 1922.
The title of this text in Mongolian is: Ariɣun surɣaɣuli-yin asaɣuqu öčikü bičig.
This book is a catechism, or a summary of the principles of Christian religion in the form of questions and answers for the instruction of Christians. It was likely translated from a Chinese version.
The title of this text in Mongolian is: Maɣtaɣal-un duu.
This text was published in 1925 by the Swedish Mongol Mission Press. It was printed at the mission station Hallong Osso, which was in use from 1908 to 1928. This folder contains five copies of the text: one hardcover, one clothbound, and three unbound.
The title of this text in Mongolian is: Maɣtaɣal-un duu.
This book of hymns is unbound and pasted on loose sheets of paper. The handwritten note in Swedish on the front reads "Suitable for string music, No. 6, My soul up."
This book was published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in Shanghai, China, in 1913. This book is written in Tibetan.
The title of this text in Mongolian is: Aradan tümen-ü ariɣun yosun orusibai.
This item is the front and back cover only of a book published in 1923 by the Russo-Mongolian Printing Company in Urga, Mongolia. The author is thought to be Agvaanchoĭnzhuurdondov, the sixth reincarnation of the Buddhist lama Darba Bandida.