Archives of Ohio United Methodism

The Archives of Ohio United Methodism is the official repository of records for the East Ohio and West Ohio Conferences of The United Methodist Church. As such, we are custodians of a hymnal collection containing over 600 volumes. The collection contains official hymnals of the various denominations that were predecessors of The United Methodist Church as well as other Methodist denominations – Wesleyan, Free Methodist, African Methodist Episcopal, etc. The collection is predominantly from the 19th and 20th centuries, but a few volumes date back into the 18th century. A concerted effort has been made to collect as many versions of each hymnal as we can – all publishers, dates, and revisions. We have many German language hymnals (Methodist Episcopal, Evangelical Association, United Brethren). Also contained in our collection are translations of hymns created by early 20th century missionaries in native languages – Chinese, Korean, Canarese, Tagalog, Umbundu, etc. The hymnals have been cataloged and are searchable via CONSORT, the combined online catalog of OWU, Kenyon College, College of Wooster, and Denison University. In addition to the official hymnals, we have an extensive collection of Sunday School hymnals, gospel/revival/camp meeting songbooks, and early 19th century tune books. Of special interest is the manuscript collection of gospel songwriter Leila Naylor Morris (Mrs. Charles H. Morris, 1862-1929) -- hand-written versions of her hymns, both words and music, from 1907 to 1922. Leila Naylor Morris was an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Ohio. URL for catalog: http://consort.library.denison.edu (Change "All libraries" to "Ohio Wesleyan University.")