Francis August Otto Pieper (1852-1931) Collection

The Francis Pieper Collection contains primarily materials created and collected by Francis Pieper. The collection has been arranged into five series: Profile, Correspondence, Subject Files, Writings by Pieper, and Writings by Other Authors.

The Profile series consists of material that provides a brief overview of Pieper’s professional and personal life, such as anniversaries, general biographical information, class and curriculum material from both his student and teaching careers, congratulations, invoices, handwritten notebooks from his student days and photographs. The obituary file contains news clippings, copies of memorial service programs and memorial addresses by friends and officials. The folders are arranged in alphabetical order.

The Correspondence series is arranged in chronological order with the original letters appearing first, followed by transcriptions and translations, if they exist. The dates of the letters appear in the form Day/Month/Year. A database of the letters has been kept and is available in the CHI reading room.

This series contains all correspondence found in the collection, which includes a fair amount of correspondence not written by or directed to Pieper. In some cases it is evident who authors and addressees are (e.g., Bente to Schwan). Since these letters were found in the Pieper collection, they have been left there.

For the years 1901–1903 there is a large amount of correspondence between Trinity Lutheran Church, Cincinnati, Ohio; Pastor Alexander von Schlichten; and Pieper that pertains to the “Cincinnati Case.” Other documents pertaining this incident are in the Subject File series in folders 115 and 116.

In order to maintain the completeness of the C. F. W. Walther letter collection, the following letters have been removed and added to the C. F. W. Walther Papers, 1828-1972: 1. 11 March 1883 Letter from Walther to “Mein teurer Herr Praeses” (Schwan?) 2. 12 May 1879 Letter from Sihler to “Mein theurer Walther” (C.F.W. Walther) 3. 13 May 1879 Letter from Sihler to “Mein theurer Walther” (C.F.W. Walther) It is unclear why these letters were filed in Pieper’s papers.

Several letters written by Pieper are addressed to Herr Praeses (Mr. President). These letters could be meant for Praeses Schwan (Synodical President), a Missouri Synod district president, or the president of another Lutheran church body.

The Subject Files series is arranged alphabetically by topic and includes printed materials and a variety of handwritten notebooks. The notebooks are possibly class notes taken by Pieper’s students. These notebooks are in alphabetical order according to the first title found in the book. They may contain more subjects than listed in the title. The name in parenthesis on the file label is the name of the writer and/or owner of the book. The book in folder 164 is actually in its own box.

The Writings by Pieper series contains mainly lectures and/or manuscripts in his own hand. They are filed alphabetically by topic and also include mimeographed copies of lectures conducted by Pieper.

The Christliche Dogmatics subseries to Pieper’s writings are the notes and/or manuscripts of three volumes of Christliche Dogmatik. They are filed in the same topical sequence in which the printed volumes are organized. Only parts of the chapters were found and identified; the majority of the information pertains to Volume I. The filing label does not identify the volume of the books.

The Writings by Other Authors series are manuscripts composed and written by authors other than Pieper. Some are lectures and/or articles sent to him either for publication (in Lehre und Wehre) or just for review. These lectures are filed topically in alphabetical order.

Single unidentifiable fragments, newspaper clippings, and envelopes from correspondence comprised a large part (3 linear feet) of the Francis Pieper Collection. Each single piece of paper was handled separately and examined. Once it was determined that an item did not fit into one of the above categories, it was separated for destruction. A very concentrated effort was made by the arranger of the collection to identify as many fragments as possible. These fragments are located in folders 182 and 183.

Materials received after the Pieper collection was processed and that do not fit into existing folders have been placed in an Addendum series at the end of the collection.