| Date Span: | 1895-1965 |
| Creator: | Foster, Ora Delmer (1877-1965) |
| Extent: | 24.50 linear feet. |
| Collection Number: | MSC0211 |
| Repository: | University of Iowa Special Collections |
| Summary: | Congregational minister, lecturer, and professor. Subject files, literary manuscripts, diaries, photographs, and books relating to Foster's life and career. |
A Congregational minister, Ora Delmer Foster (1877 -- 1965) graduated from Manchester College in Indiana. He received his B.D. and A.M degrees at Oberlin and his Ph.D. at Yale. Toward the end of World War I, he organized and directed the Comrades in Service Movement. This was an interfaith project that included all of the welfare agencies along with officers and soldiers. Dr. Foster was for many years the university secretary of the Council of Church Boards of Education. In 1922, at the Conference of Church Workers in Universities, he presented a paper proposing the idea of a School of Religion as a part of a tax-supported university. His idea was picked up by Iowa officials attending the meeting, and the University of Iowa's School of Religion was born. Dr. Foster was a guest professor there in the 1940s. He was a promoter of interfaith and church-state understanding and cooperation. His life's work was in the field of inter-cultural relations. A wide traveler and unofficial ambassador of goodwill, he spent many years working and studying in Mexico and South America. Dr. O. Delmer Foster died in Claremont, California, at the age of eighty-seven.
Alternate Extent Statement: Photographs in Boxes 32 and 36; glass slides in Boxes 34 and 37; dictaphone discs in Box 33.
Access: This collection is open for research.
Use: Copyright restrictions may apply; please consult Special Collections staff for further information.
Acquisition: The Ora Delmer Foster papers were given to the University of Iowa Libraries in 1958.
Preferred Citation: Ora Delmer Foster Papers, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
| Repository: | University of Iowa Special Collections |
| Address: | Special Collections Department University of Iowa Libraries Iowa City, IA 52242 |
| Phone: | 319-335-5921 |
| Curator: | Greg Prickman |
| Email: | lib-spec@uiowa.edu |
| Website: | http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/ |
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