The Pearl Shaffer Sweet Collection contains correspondence, notes and papers describing the formation of the J.A.B. Fry Library. These materials also document Mrs. Sweet's research activities as Archivist of that Library. Before and after her retirement, Mrs. Sweet maintained scrapbooks on various ethnic minorities and on the history of the Methodist Church. These, too, form a valuable part of the Pearl Shaffer Sweet Collection.

Pearl Shaffer Sweet (1905-) attended the College of the Pacific, commencing with the first four year Stockton class (1924). While still a junior she married E.M. Sweet, whose family were active members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (1927). From the mid-1930s--before the Southern Methodists fused with the Methodist Episcopal Church--Pearl Sweet collected papers and books relevant to the activities of both churches. These included materials pertaining to Methodist missionary work among Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos and other non-white minorities in Stockton. Later she arranged for her collection to become the property of the Northern California-Nevada Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, naming the collection the "J.A.B. Fry Library" after a former missionary and Bishop of the Conference (1948). At the same time Mrs. Sweet arranged for the Fry Library to be housed at the College of the Pacific. Pearl Shaffer Sweet was then a member of the executive committee of the Historical Society of the Northern California-Nevada Conference and Archivist of the J.A.B. Fry Library (1949-1963). From 1959, she was also a consulting and contributing editor for the Encyclopedia of World Methodism.

Collection is open for research.