Digital Mennonite Periodicals

This library guide provides access to a growing number of digitized Mennonite periodicals.  Titles are listed in alphabetical order. Many, but not all of these titles are hosted on Internet Archive. Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary Library and Mennonite Historical Library at Goshen College provided originals for scanning and staff support for most of the titles.  If you click through to a specific periodical volume you can usually find details of which institution(s) arranged for digitization of the periodical.  Please alert us via the Feedback link on this page to other historical Mennonite periodical titles which become available without a paywall.

Beginning in 2016, a broad partnership of North American Mennonite-related library, historical and archive organizations provided free online full text versions of significant Mennonite denominational publications:

• Gospel Herald (1908-1998) was the denominational magazine of the Mennonite Church (more info).
• The Mennonite (1885-1998) was the denominational magazine of the General Conference Mennonite Church (more info).
• The Mennonite (1998-) is the denominational magazine of Mennonite Church USA.

Initial funding support came from these organizations with significant grant support from the Schowalter Foundation and copyright permission from MennoMedia and The Mennonite, these periodicals are now available in digital form via the Internet Archive. Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary Library and Mennonite Historical Library at Goshen College provided originals for scanning and staff support for the project. 

Within each volume, researchers may conduct a full text search to more quickly locate topics and articles that are of interest. Online access makes these periodicals available to researchers who may not be able to travel to a Mennonite library or archive.

At the completion of the digitization of Gospel Herald and The Mennonite, funds were still available to digitize several predecessor tiles to Gospel Herald.

• Der Herold der Wahrheit, published by John F. Funk from 1864-1901, had quasi-official status in the Mennonite Church (MC).
• The Herald of Truth, published by John F. Funk from 1864-1908, had quasi-official status in the Mennonite Church (MC).
• Gospel Witness, published weekly from 1905-1908, served the Mennonite Church (MC).

Rival publications Gospel Witness and The Herald of Truth merged in 1908 to form Gospel Herald.

April 25, 2017

Volumes from The Gospel Witness, The Herald of Truth, and Der Herold der Wahrheit have been posted online. Internet Archive collections have been reorganized to facilitate discovery of digitized items.

May 19, 2016

Volumes of MCUSA's The Mennonite have been posted from from 1998 to 2014. One volume will be added each year to this collection. Selected articles from more recent issues may be read on The Mennonite website.

January 11, 2016

All volumes of Gospel Herald and The Mennonite from the beginning of publication to 1998 are now posted on this guide and our Internet Archive site. There may be additional work needed to fix problems in digitized versions.

Please contact askalibrarian@ambs.edu if you find any problems in our digitized resources.