Gladwyn Murray Childs papers, 1882-1972

Born in 1896, he received bachelor's degree from Pomona College, a B.D. and M.A. from Union Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University. His dissertation was published as "Umbundu Kinship and Character" by Oxford University Press and the University of Witwatersrand. Together with his wife, Margaret, he worked as a missionary from 1925 to the early 1960's for the United Church Board for World Ministries and American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Angola and Portugese West Africa. He was principal of a mission school, the Currie Institute. After retiring he worked for the World Council of Churches in Lisbon, but sought to return to Angola to work on a prehistoric project. Childs worked with his uncle, Merlin Ennis, a researcher of folk tales, on Umbundu folktales.