"Calvinism and Arminianism" (predestination versus univeralism)u, undated

The papers (1771, 1819-1926, undated) of James Harris Fairchild do not provide users a complete record of the Fairchild presidency, 1866-1889, or of the personal life of their creator. The body of documentation is instead a mix of personal and professional papers, the bulk of which consists of incoming correspondence (1852-1903).  All but two boxes of this correspondence has been described at the item level in a six-volume calendar, plus an index, prepared by Susan F. Zearing in 1955-1956. The correspondence treats those subjects that Oberlin College officially represented, including support of coeducation, missions, black education, and opposition to secret societies and to the use by individuals of alcohol and tobacco. Many of Fairchild’s schoolmates and former pupils sought his counsel, and they communicated with him regarding the “Oberlin Enterprise.” Correspondents include Congregationalists William E. Barton, Sherlock Bristol, Frank Hugh Foster, Abel Hastings Ross, Judson Smith, Josiah Strong, and John M. Williams, and educators William S. Scarborough and Henry A. Schauffler. The family correspondence is extensive, although only a few letters exist of James H. Fairchild. Of interest among the uncalendared letters (1819-1900) is the correspondence between James Harris Fairchild and Mary Fletcher Kellogg during their courtship (1838-1841). The family reproduced the originals in a three-volume set in 1939.

The papers are divided into the following record series: I. Correspondence (Calendared); II. Correspondence (Uncalendared); III. Courtship Correspondence (typescript); IV. Miscellaneous Institutional Records Kept; V. Miscellaneous Non-Institutional Records Kept; VI. Teaching Files; VII. Travel Diaries; VIII. Writings by Fairchild; IX. Sermons; X. Miscellaneous Printed Writings by Fairchild; XI. Writings about Fairchild; XII. Photographs; and, XIII. Miscellaneous Fairchild Correspondence.

Series VIII. Miscellaneous Family Papers was added when additional Fairchild family materials were received from the Oberlin College Library in 2001.  Within series, files are typically arranged alphabetically by type of material or chronologically. In the attached Inventory, volume is only indicated for more than one folder of material.

Included with Fairchild's professional and institutional records are several notebooks containing Fairchild's lecture notes for his courses in Moral Philosophy (1862), Theology (1881), and Natural Theology (1881), as well as a series of “Lakeside Lectures” on Scripture (1879, 1880) and lectures on evolution (1876), international law [1878], and painting (1878).  The Annual Reports of President Fairchild (1867-1880) to the Board of Trustees, while incomplete, provide information about student health and discipline, curriculum changes, and conditions at the seminary with regard to its low enrollments and faculty shortage.  The gap for the years 1881-1889 is filled by a bound volume of reports (1876-1893) in the Oberlin College Archives.

Fairchild’s scholarship is represented in these papers mainly by manuscript and typescript drafts of addresses, articles, and sermons, by printed pamphlets, and by newspaper articles, in the original and in photocopy.  None of his books are contained in the collection, although Series VII does contain the manuscript draft of Oberlin, the Colony and the College (1883). Reminiscences about Fairchild, written mainly by former students, are housed with Fairchild’s own writings.

Fairchild’s activities outside of teaching and theological scholarship are evident here in his travel diaries (1870-1871) and in his precise meteorological observations made in Oberlin over a period of nine years (1849-1858).  With the exception of the diaries (in Series III), these records are housed together with materials of a miscellaneous character in Series VI.  Miscellaneous materials include circulars from various Congregational Church organizations, clippings, an emergency passport issued in 1909 to Mary Flagler Cowles (b. 1862, Lit. 1891), files relating to the Oberlin Agricultural and Horticultural Society (1838-1849), the Oberlin Evangelist Association (1845-1862), and the temperance movement in Oberlin (1881). Miscellaneous papers of a personal nature (1835-1900) are filed in Series II.