NOTES
- Women's missionary publications have not been extensively studied for links to U.S. political ideologies. Mostly, scholars have focused on how missionary writings were linked to colonialist tendencies and ideologies, usually from British contexts but occasionally considering U.S. missionary writings as well. See, for instance, Janet M. Cramer, “White Womanhood and Religion: Colonial Discourse in the U.S. Women's Missionary Press, 1869–1904,” Howard Journal of Communications 14 (2003): 209–24; Inderpal Grewal, Home and Harem: Nation, Gender, Empire, and the Cultures of Travel (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996); Sara Mills, Discourses of Difference: An Analysis of Women's Travel Writing and Colonialism (London: Routledge, 1991); Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992); and Karen Sanchez-Eppler, “Raising Empires Like Children: Race, Nation, and Religious Education,” American Literary History 8 (1996): 399–426.
- Martin E. Marty, The Religious Press in America (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972), 36.
- David Paul Nord, “Religious Reading and Readers in Antebellum America,” Journal of the Early Republic 15 (Summer 1995): 246.
- Patricia R. Hill, The World Their Household: The American Woman's Foreign Mission Movement and Cultural Transformation, 1870–1920 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1985), 3.
- Dana L. Robert, American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and Practice (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1996), 130–37.
- Ibid, 129–33.
- Catherine Hobbs, “Introduction: Cultures and Practices of U.S. Women's Literacy,” in Catherine Hobbs, ed., Nineteenth-Century Women Learn to Write (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995), 1–33.
- Histories of the women's club movement include: Karen J. Blair, The Clubwoman as Feminist: True Womanhood Redefined, 1868–1914 (New York: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1980); Anne Firor Scott, Natural Allies: Women's Associations in American History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 111–28, 141–58; Mildred White Wells, Unity in Diversity: The History of the General Federation of Women's Clubs (Washington, D.C.: General Federation of Women's Clubs, 1953); and Mary I. Wood, The History of the General Federation of Women's Clubs for the First 22 Years of Its Organization (New York: General Federation of Women's Clubs, 1912).
- Louise Manning Hodgkins, “Greeting!” Heathen Woman's Friend, January 1894, 202.
- Due to their size, these denominations also maintained archives of letters, diaries, minutes, and other primary source data. The collection of missionary periodicals was most comprehensive for these groups as well, providing the best body of evidence for research. Although some differences may exist among denominational missionary societies and their publications, it was not assumed that this would dramatically alter the findings. It is important to note, however, that the publications studied were all from white, middle-class women's missionary societies even though African American women developed numerous outlets for religious publishing activity. See Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), 17.
- All issues of three monthly Methodist Episcopal and Presbyterian publications published during 1869–1905 were read to discern constructions of womanhood, specifically ideas about women missionaries and what their priorities should be. Reports of meetings, reprinted accounts of president's speeches, and letters to and from missionaries also provided insight into the ideals of Christian womanhood and missionary service. Using a method of textual analysis guided by thematic structures, as described by qualitative researchers, key ideas and themes were located through recurring images and words. See Clifford Christians and James Carey, “The Logic and Aims of Qualitative Research,” in Guido Stempel and Bruce Westley, eds., Research Methods in Mass Communication (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1989), 354–75; and John Pauly, “A Beginner's Guide to Doing Qualitative Research in Mass Communication,” Journalism Monographs 125 (1991). In addition, data relating to women's missionary publications, publishing practices, goals, and circulation also were sought in the periodicals and in minutes of missionary society meetings.
- Women's Missionary Advocate, November 1898, 137.
- Amanda Johnson diary, September 25, 1864-January 29, 1869, United Methodist Church Archives, Drew University, Madison, N.J.
- Charlotte W. Norris Hartwell, Correspondence (Letter to Anna, Feb. 20, 1894), Hartwell Family papers, Yale Divinity School, Day Missions Library, Special Collections, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
- Harriet Merrick Warren, “Prospectus of The Heathen Woman's Friend,” Heathen Woman's Friend, May 1869, 5.
- Appeals to, and education of, children was a priority for the Methodist women's missionary group. In January 1890, it launched a separate children's publication, The Heathen Children's Friend, with a similar goal as its parent publication—education of the missionary effort.
- Annie E. Lawson journal, Nov. 6, 1885-Jan. 1, 1888, Annie E. Lawson papers, United Methodist Church Archives, Drew University.
- Twenty-ninth Annual Report, 1898, Women's Foreign Missionary Society, Methodist Episcopal Church (North), Women's Foreign Missionary Society Records, United Methodist Church Archives, Drew University.
- J.T. Gracey, “Our Translated Leader,” The Heathen Woman's Friend, March 1893, 215.
- Frances J. Baker, The Story of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1869–1895 (Cincinnati: Cranston and Curtis, 1896), 77. The report of the twelfth annual meeting of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1880 indicated a surplus of $2,143.69. The women of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, received only about a tenth of this amount, with a surplus of $222.18 reported in 1900. See Woman's Missionary Advocate, October 1900, 127.
- Gracey, “Our Translated Leader,” 212–15.
- Harriet Merrick Warren diary, 1869–1889, passim, Harriet Merrick Warren papers, Mugar Memorial Library, Special collections, Boston University, Boston, Mass.
- Twenty-sixth annual report of the Women's Foreign Missionary Society, Methodist Episcopal Church (North), United Methodist Church Archives, Drew University.
- Woman's Work for Woman, January 1906, 2.
- “Prospectus,” Women's Missionary Magazine, August 1887, 9.
- Committee members thought they had overestimated the interest that the new publication would generate by ordering an initial publication run of 3,000 even though they had only 1,500 paid subscribers. But after two months, subscriptions nearly doubled to 2,800. At the turn of the century, subscriptions totaled 5,000. See “Editorial Department,” Women's Missionary Magazine, October 1887, 69; and “Report of Missionary Magazine,” Women's Missionary Magazine, July 1900, 353.
- Mary Lombard, “Salutation.” Woman's Work for Woman, December 1885, 1.
- Histories that explore this idea include: Nancy F. Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood: ‘Woman's Sphere” in New England, 1780–1835 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977); John D'Emilio and Estelle Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), xii–xiii; Charles E. Rosenberg, “Sexuality, Class and Role in Nineteenth-Century America,” in Elizabeth Pleck and Joseph Pleck, eds., The American Man (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1980), 219–54; Sheila M. Rothman, Woman's Proper Place: A History of Changing Ideals and Practices, 1870 to the Present (New York: Basic Books, 1978); Mary P. Ryan, Women in Public: Between Banners and Ballots, 1825–1880 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, “The Hysterical Woman: Sex Roles and Role Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America,” Social Research 39 (1972): 652–78; and Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood,” American Quarterly 18 (1966); 151–74.
- Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 176.
- Lucy W. Waterbury, “The New Woman,” Woman's Missionary Advocate, February 1898, 244–45.
- See, for instance, Cynthia Grant Tucker, Prophetic Sisterhood: Liberal Women Ministers of the Frontier, 1880–1930 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990); and Scott, Natural Allies, 85–110.
- Warren diary, March 27, 1874, and Feb. 8, 1875, Harriet Merrick Warren papers, Mugar Memorial Library, Special collections, Boston University.
- Hill, The World Their Household, 48.
- See Woman's Missionary Friend, January 1898, 186; and Ida Richards Compton, “At Cedartown,” The Mission Messenger, May 1896, 2.
- Harriet Merrick Warren, “On Morality and China,” Heathen Woman's Friend, May 1869, 7.
- Hodgkins, “Greeting!” 202.
- “Woman's Work in China,” Woman's Missionary Advocate, October 1880, 3.
- Mrs. Duncan McLaren, “The Responsibility of Women in Regard to Mission Work,” Women's Missionary Advocate, September 1900, 74.
- Mary E. Wright, “Children as Missionary Workers,” Mission Messenger, May 1904, 6.
- Mrs. J.B. Thornton, “Organization and Information,” Mission Messenger, May 1904, 1.
- “The Women,” Heathen Woman's Friend, March 1890, 236.
- Mrs. Frank Butler, “What a Question Is This?” Woman's Missionary Advocate, October 1880, 8. An item in the Mission Messenger cast education as a benefit to the Christian home: “The education of women is a subject dear to every Christian woman's heart. What it means to the Christian home is beyond comparison.” See Laura Richards, “Dear Messenger,” Mission Messenger, May 1904, 7.
- Baker, The Story of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, 82–83; and Annie Lawson Journal, Drew University.
- Twenty-seventh annual report, Women's Foreign Missionary Society, Methodist Episcopal Church (North), 1896, Yale Divinity School, Day Missions Library, Yale University.
- “Reports on Meetings,” Heathen Woman's Friend, March 1889, 238.
- Dr. T. Craven, “The Value of the Zenana Paper,” Heathen Woman's Friend, March 1889, 238–39.
- Twenty-sixth annual report of the Women's Foreign Missionary Society, Methodist Episcopal Church (North), 1895, Yale Divinity School, Day Missions Library, Yale University.
- See, for instance, Linda Kerber, “Separate Spheres, Female Worlds, Woman's Place: The Rhetoric of Women's History,” Journal of American History 75 (1988): 9–39.
- See Scott, Natural Allies, for more on these connections.