The Mennonite Church USA Archives was founded in 2001 under the denominational merger of the (old) Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church. Prior to 2001, the two largest Mennonite denominations maintained separate archives: the Archives of the Mennonite Church, located on the Goshen College (Goshen, Indiana) campus, housed materials pertaining to the (old) Mennonite Church, while the Mennonite Library and Archives on the Bethel College (North Newton, Kansas) campus held the records of the General Conference Mennonite Church.
Although now merged, the two repositories remain physically separate and both hold records created by Mennonite Church USA. The Mennonite Church USA Archives is administered by the Mennonite Church USA Historical Committee.
The Archives of the Mennonite Church was founded by the Mennonite Church Historical Committee in 1937 to house collections pertaining to Mennonite and Anabaptist history. The Archives are housed in Newcomer Center on the campus of Goshen College, Indiana.
The Archives contain 1,800 personal collections including the manuscripts of significant Mennonite thinkers such as John Howard Yoder, Harold S. Bender, J.C. Wenger, Guy F. Hershberger, Robert Friedmann, John F. Funk, John S. Coffman, Emma Richards, and Peter J. Dyck.
The archives also serve as the official repository of the official records of Mennonite Church USA and its affiliated organizations such as:
The collection is split between two sites: one housed at Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana, and Mennonite Library and Archives in North Newton, Kansas. Respectively, these sites focus primarily on the documents pertaining to the (now combined under Mennonite Church USA) (old) MC (Mennonite Church) and GC (General Conference Mennonite Church). Combined, these two locations contain some 20 million documents related to the Mennonite and Anabaptist faith.