The papers of Dale R. Johnson consist primarily of documents regarding a Buddhist Temple which was owned for some time by Oberlin College. This temple is an exact replica of an 18th century temple in Jehol Province, China, itself build on the pattern of the Dalai Lama’s monastic temple in Lhasa, Tibet. The replica was built in China and displayed at the 1931 Chicago International Exhibition and the 1939 New York World’s Fair. It was then disassembled and put into storage, and in 1943 donated to Oberlin College as the new center for a department of Oriental Studies. Plans to reconstruct the building faltered, and it was donated to the Charles Martin Hall Estate. The Hall Estate gave the building to the Harvard-Yenching Institute in 1957 and the Institute gave it to Indiana University in 1970, but it remained in a warehouse in Oberlin until it was moved to Stockholm in the 1980s. The collection also includes some documents on the career and hobbies of its compiler, Dale Johnson, but the scope of these papers is very limited.

Series I. Biographical, n.d.

Contained in this series are Dale Johnson’s Curriculum Vitae and other information on his career as a professor of Chinese at Oberlin College.

Series II. Clippings, 1957, 1964, 1972-73, 1980-81, 1983-86, 1998, n.d.

This series contains an extensive collection of newspaper clippings regarding the Buddhist temple and its history. It also contains articles by and about Dale Johnson, which discuss Chinese and American culture, weaving, and Johnson’s collection of buttons depicting Mao Tse-Tung.

Series III. Correspondence, 1962, 1973, 1981-82, 1998

This series consists of letters regarding the condition and ownership of the Buddhist temple. Correspondents include Johnson and representatives of the Harvard-Yenching Institute, the First Kalmuk Budhist [sic] Temple, Indiana University, and Neighborhood Redevelopment Assistance of Chicago.

Series IV. Miscellaneous, 1943, c.1975, 1980, 1982, 1998, n.d.

This series notably contains a timeline of the Buddhist temple’s history, copies of legal documents concerning the temple, and a printout of a website describing the temple’s partial restoration in Stockholm in the 1990s.

Series V. Printed Matter and Postcards, c. 1931-33, n.d.

This series contains additional materials relating to the Buddhist temple, including postcards, documents on the construction of the temple in English and Chinese, a restaurant menu, a stereoscope photograph, and a 1932 book on the temple and Buddhism by Sven Hedin.

Series VI. Writings, 1933, 1984, n.d.

Series VI consists of four documents, three of which are histories of the Buddhist temple. These are “American Saga of a Chinese Temple” by Dale Johnson, “The Chinese Lama Temple: The Golden Pavilion of Jehol” by Barbara Lipton, and “The Chinese Temple of Oberlin” by Victoria L. Getis. The series also contains photocopies of the first two chapters of the book Jehol: City of Emperors by Sven Hedin.

These materials were donated to the Oberlin College Archives by Dale Johnson in 2004.

Documents relating to the Buddhist temple can be found in the collections of the Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association (RG 15/2/4 and 15/5/6), College President Robert Kenneth Carr (RG 2/9/1/10/4), and Photographs (RG 32/4). “The Chinese Temple of Oberlin” by Victoria L. Getis can also be found in Student Papers (RG 19/5).