PTS Archives: Home

Institutional Records

Manuscripts/Personal Papers

Artifacts

Photographs

Church History Pamphlet Files

This guide was authored by archivist Elizabeth Scott. It is currently maintained by Alyson Pope.

The Pittsburgh Theological Seminary is the result of several mergers following the founding of its earliest antecedent, Service Seminary, in 1794 by the Associate Presbyterian Church. The documents recording those mergers as well as the records of seminaries, past and present, are housed in the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Archives. 

The primary purpose of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Archives is to provide for the efficient and systematic control of the creation, receipt, maintenance, use, and disposition of records. Records administration covers the management of records, regardless of age, to meet the administrative, financial, legal and historical needs within the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s offices and departments. 

The PTS Archives contains seminary and antecedent seminary institutional records, manuscript collections, personal papers, photographs, and artifacts.

Check out the newly processed collection on the Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor, an international organization credited as the start of youth ministry. The collection at PTS contains materials primarily from the Allegheny County Chapter of Christian Endeavor from the 1890s and 1920s. It is also comprised of Pennsylvania State Chapter documents and a few national and international materials.