Augustana Endowment Society records

The Augustana Endowment Society records, 1894-2021 and undated, has been arranged into four series: Administrative Files, Financial Records, Yearbooks, and Artifacts.

The Administrative Files series is divided into five subseries: Historical, Legal Papers, Membership Records, General Correspondence, and Meeting Minutes. The Historical subseries includes histories of the society written by members, an overview of Augustana's General Endowment, and newspaper clippings. Legal Papers, contains legal documents such as articles of incorporation, amendments to the articles, constitutions, by-laws, and other documents that define the society's purpose and legal status. Membership Records consists of bound membership ledgers listing honorary and active members and 21st-century yearbooks used by the treasurer to track membership payments. General Correspondence largely includes letters received from men and women responding to invitations to becoming honorary members, in addition to miscellaneous notes, receipts, bequests, invitations, and other papers. The Meeting Minutes and Reports subseries documents group's monthly meetings. Minutes were recorded in bound books from 1894 through 1943. Other materials shared at the meetings would also be gathered by the secretary and affixed to pages within the bound books or stored in envelopes affixed to the pages of the books. For preservation purposes, these pages have been removed when appropriate and housed separately. The items that have been removed are labeled as Reports. Starting in 1952, minutes were no longer recorded in bound books, so reports are included with the meeting minutes. There is a gap in the minutes from 1943 to 1952.

The Financial Records series contains bound cashbooks (1894-1998) that track receipts and disbursements, treasurer's correspondence, and other information regarding bank accounts, stocks, and the safe deposit box. The items in this series were accumulated and created by the treasurer of the society.

The Yearbooks series (1907-2021) contains issues of the society's annual yearbook, which include the constitution, the annual calendar of events, a list of officers and committees, a list of active members, past presidents, and a brief history.

The Artifacts series (1919) contains one wooden gavel presented to the society by J.W. Casto in 1919.

The 2022 Accession series (2015-2022) includes administrative records such as historian and president reports, as well as meeting minutes. The financial records in this series largely document several audit reports and associated documents prepared by the treasuer.