Young professors Harold S. Bender, Ernst Correll and Guy Hershberger were among those active in promoting the concurrent resurrection of the college's Mennonite Historical Society. Students, faculty and several alumni and friends were part of the reconstitution group's charter membership of 42 in 1924. Activities of the society and its leaders were key in transforming the MHL's several shelves of topically related material into a comprehensive resource for the study of Anabaptist-Mennonite history, life, and thought.