Book Description

The microfilming of the Alaska Mission Collection follows the organization of the Oregon Province Archives and contains 730 manuscripts (49,816 pages) written by Jesuit missionaries in Alaska from 1886 to 1955. Documents are separated into mission stations (reels 1-25) and biographical material on the missionaries (reels 26-42). The twenty-four mission stations material generally includes the House Diary (daily or weekly notations entered in a journal, usually by the mission superior), the "Historia Domus" (a brief account of the status of the mission, ordinarily written every two or three years by the local superior and sent to the provincial), the "Litterae Annuae" (an annual account of the state of the parish or mission written by the local superior and sent to the Father General of the Society of Jesus in Rome), correspondence, financial records, census and religious records of Alaska Natives, miscellaneous history manuscripts written at the mission, and any newsletters or newspaper clippings regarding the station. The biographical material generally includes personal diaries, correspondence, published and unpublished history manuscripts, and any publications about the person. As regards the missionaries it should be noted that while this microfilm edition contains forty unrestricted collections, there were actually closer to two hundred Jesuits who served in Alaska during the dates covered by this project. Of this number, however, perhaps as many as a quarter remained three years or less in Alaska. Subtract, too, those men whose collections fall under the fifty-year restriction rule, and consider that some men did not safeguard their personal papers, while others who did, nevertheless lost them in the several fires that swept the mission buildings. The result is that virtually all of the existing papers on the Society of Jesus' presence in Alaska between 1886 and 1955 is contained in this microfilm edition of forty-two reels.