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Permission to publish or reproduce is required from the copyright holder. For more information, please see the Permissions and Copyright page on the West Virginia and Regional History Center website.

Conditions Governing Access

No special access restriction applies.

Preferred Citation

[Description and date of item], [Box/folder number], Theodore L. Gardiner, President of Salem College, Diaries and Other Material, A&M 4130, West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, West Virginia.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Acquired from Unknown, 2015/08/24

Biographical / Historical

Theodore Livingston Gardiner (April 15, 1844 - July 3, 1938) was born in Little Genesee, Allegany County, New York. He graduated from Alfred University in 1874 with a degree in theology, which was also the same year he accepted his first pastorship for the church. He worked as a pastor in Seventh-Day Baptist Churches in Westerly, Rhode Island and Greenmanville, Connecticut for a number of years before accepting a position at the New Salem Church in Salem, WV in 1890. In 1892 he became the President of Salem College, where he presided until 1906. After leaving Salem College Gardner and his family lived briefly in North Loup, Nebraska until he accepted the position of Editor of the Sabbath Recorder. In 1909 Gardiner wrote the biography of Rev. Abram Herbert Lewis, a notable Seventh-Day Baptist. He resigned from the Sabbath Recorder in 1931, but continued to be active as an elder within the Seventh-Day Baptist Church. Reverend Gardner was passionate about the Temperance and Prohibition movements, and spent decades preaching across the east coast. Gardiner died in 1938 in Plainfield, NJ. He survived three of his wives, Emily, Hannah, and Alice, and had two children, Gertrude (Effie Gertrude) and Dora (Emily Theodora).

The Seventh-Day Baptist Church was founded in England in the mid-seventeenth century. An evangelical denomination, its members observe the Sabbath on a Saturday. By 1671 the first American church was founded in Newport, Rhode Island. In the late eighteenth century Seventh-Day Baptists arrived in Western Virginia. By the nineteenth century the church would be actively involved in the Temperance and Prohibition movements.

Salem College was founded in 1888 by the Seventh Day Baptist Educational Society in Salem, West Virginia. Originally Salem Academy until January 1889, the college served the needs of young Seventh-Day Baptists and also non-members of the church. After becoming President in 1892, Theodore Gardiner oversaw the expansion of the college and worked to alleviate institutional debt until his resignation in 1906. In the 20th century the college underwent a large expansion, and in 1989 formed an alliance with Teikyo University of Tokyo, Japan. This alliance ended in 2000 after the college was purchased by Chinese investors and became Salem International University.

Scope and Contents

Papers of Theodore L. Gardiner, a clergyman for the Seventh-Day Baptist church and former President of Salem College (now Salem International University). The collection includes diaries and other papers.

The diaries range from 1867 until 1923, the bulk of which date from 1870-1910. Prominent topics include family life and activities, finances (personal and professional), the South-Eastern Association of the Seventh-Day Baptist Church, and his activities as President of Salem College (including teaching, expansion, fundraising), among other subjects. The diaries in box 1, folder 1, document his life as a student at Alfred University in Alfred, New York.

The collection also includes papers related to Gardiner's role as a clergyman of the Seventh-Day Baptist Church, and as a Temperance Movement activist. There are also financial and academic records related to his role as President of Salem College.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Gardiner, Theodore L., 1844-1938
• Seventh-Day Baptists