1958-1974
The Woman’s Missionary Union, Auxiliary to the Southern Baptist Convention, began in 1888. Annie Armstrong of Maryland served as the WMU’s founder and first corresponding secretary. In 1958, the SBC Radio and Television Commission began recording the proceedings of the annual meeting of the Woman’s Missionary Union. These conferences preceded the meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention and were usually held concurrently with the Pastor’s Conference. The WMU meeting usually included four or five sessions. The conference included music, devotionals, prayers, a short business session that included the election of officers, and addresses. The majority of the speakers at the WMU meetings represented home and foreign missionaries and missions leaders.
Recordings in this presentation were transferred from reel-to-reel audio recordings. Some years had to be copied onto a new format of tape for preservation reasons by the Historical Commission staff. With the exception of the 1958 recordings, these are gavel to gavel recordings of the WMU annual meetings. The 1958 recordings include highlights of the meeting only. Beginning with the 1959 recordings, the proceedings follow the daily order of the conference. Users of these recordings should consult the conference programs to find the location of specific program items and addresses. Some addresses will overlap onto two parts of the recordings. Listeners of the proceedings need to be aware that while the vast majority of the recordings are good quality, some recordings are poor and difficult to understand.
Programs of the Woman’s Missionary Union meetings are available here.
The text of some of the addresses of the WMU meetings are available here.
