Jesuits founded and staffed colleges, high schools, middle schools, parishes, retreat houses, and universities throughout the midwestern United States. They continue to serve in many of those early foundations such as St. Ignatius High School, Saint Louis University, University of Detroit Mercy, Holy Rosary Mission-Red Cloud Indian School, Loyola Parish, and Bellarmine Jesuit Retreat House, as well as works begun more recently such as Cristo Rey Jesuit High School and Nativity Jesuit Middle School.
The Midwest Jesuit Archives is separated into five major collections: Chicago, Detroit, Jesuit Conference, Missouri, and Wisconsin. Each collection consists of biographical records, personal papers, manuscripts, photographs, records of Jesuit institutions, periodicals and books authored by Jesuits, as well as works about American religious history and the Society of Jesus. The archives also houses artifacts and memorabilia of individual Jesuits and Jesuit institutions. In addition, the archives maintains special collections, including:
Belize Collection
American Jesuits have been serving the people of the Central American county of Belize since 1893. Historical papers pertaining to their presence and ministries are in this collection.
Daniel A. Lord Collection
The papers of the energetic Jesuit Daniel A. Lord (1888-1955) capture the exuberant spirit of Roman Catholicism in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s.
De Smetiana Collection
In the 1840s, Jesuits established missions to Native Americans in the Northwestern and Midwestern United States. The De Smetiana Collection contains sixteen bound letter press books of the correspondence of missionary Jesuit Peter John De Smet (1801-1873), his scrapbook, over one hundred drawings by Jesuit Nicolas Point (1799-1868) that depict Native Americans and their lifestyle, and forty of the earliest maps of the Northwest region, hand-drawn by De Smet and his contemporaries. Some of the earliest sketches of the Yellowstone area are found in this collection.
Institute of Jesuit History Collection
The Institute of Jesuit History, established at Loyola University of Chicago, emerged in the 20th century as an attempt—though not the only one—to trace the deep roots of the Jesuits that had been in American soil for centuries. The institute was born on June 11, 1936, founded by Samuel Knox Wilson, Jesuit president of Loyola University in Chicago, and inspired by another Jesuit, Jerome J. Jacobsen. Collaborating with Jacobsen at Loyola as founding members were the Jesuits William Eugene Shiels, Jean Delanglez, Gilbert J. Garraghan, and the layman José Manuel Espinosa. Members at large who contributed articles were Raymond Corrigan and Raphael Noteware Hamilton.
The Institute took over the magazine Mid-America, originally designed to study the vast watershed of the Mississippi River, but whose scope was soon extended to two other areas of interest: the Southwest of the United States, including the northern part of Mexico, and the French-speaking part of Canada. The Institute sponsored the publication of six books and twenty-nine articles by its members and many other articles written by Jesuits who were not members of its staff. In 1942, articles began to appear on non-Jesuit topics, and, from 1958 onward, few of the contributions to the magazine were signed by members of the order. The magazine remained under the direction of the Institute until 1981, but the emergence of other institutions engaged in parallel research, the fatigue of the members of the editorial board—men devoted to full-time teaching—and the deaths and departures of some members did not happen in vain. The work of the founders and their successors did not prove fruitless, and, especially from 1936 until 1950, the Institute of Jesuit History certainly fulfilled with undoubted success its mission to recover for the present the past of the Jesuits in vast areas of America. [Translation by Ralph C. Renner, SJ, of the Spanish summary of the article by Walter Krolikowski, SJ, “The Institute of Jesuit History at Loyola University in Chicago,” Archivum Historicum Societatis Jesu 63, no. 125 (Jan.-Jun. 1994), 100.]
The Midwest Jesuit Archives holds the Institute of Jesuit History Collection. The contents of the collection are of two types, paper materials and microfilm materials. We invite you to explore the scope and content of the administrative papers of the institute and the professional papers of its members. Preserved on over 80 rolls of microfilm, mainly from various Canadian archives, are materials that pertain mostly to Jesuits working in French and Spanish controlled areas of Canada and the United States in the 17th and early 18th centuries. We welcome you to peruse the list of our microfilmed materials.
Native American Collection
Church records, diaries, and personal correspondence document Jesuits’ missionary activities among the Native Americans of the Midwestern and Northwestern United States. The archives likewise preserves dictionaries and grammars of the Potawatomi and Osage peoples. The Native American Collection is among the most consulted in the archives.
Photograph Collection
The Photograph Collection provides an amazingly clear view into American history. The photographs of Jesuit Charles M. Charroppin (1840-1915) document early St. Louis history, explore some of the earliest days of astro-photography, and tell a pictorial story of the Jesuits’ St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant, Missouri, during the 1870s and 1880s.
Francis X. Weninger Collection
The personal papers and publications of Jesuit Francis X. Weninger (1805-1888) detail the expeditions of a successful Catholic missionary in nineteenth-century America.