WISHING YOU A VERY MERRY                                      CHRISTMAS AND                                            GOD'S BLESSINGS FOR 2025                                            

           

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800: ELIZA WHITERSPOON P/22

                                                                   Read Part One HERE

In this story I will continue to focus on a woman named Eliza Whitherspoon. She lived from 1855 - 1932. In 1900, she again appeared as a delegate to the Southern Missouri and Arkansas Conference. By 1901, the Arkansas and Southern Missouri minutes list her as a "conference evangelist" meaning she travelled and preached and was assigned to a specific church. She was appointed to the Phelps County Missouri Circuit in 1904 and in 1905 she was appointed to the Neosho Circuit.

In an August 15, 1905 report, Elizabeth described a quarterly meeting where the Free Methodist District Elder J.M. Roberson preached as follows: "Sin abounds everywhere. However, I am pressing on my upward way. The Lord enables me to grow stronger every day. I am so glad I belong to the blood-washed company. I love the Lord. I love His people. I am devoting all I have to this cause - talent, time, voice, silver and gold; not a mite do I withold."

In the 1908 - 1909 annual conference minutes, Eliza was appointed to the Harrison County Circuit together with Oliver Dryer. And in 1910, she was co-appointed to the same county with Grace Huntsinger.

At the 1911 General Conference, Eliza gave the opening prayer for the nineteenth session. That session was particularly important and having a woman evangelist give the opening prayer was most likely intentional as Bishop Walter Sellew brought forth a motion to allow women to be ordained deacons in the same maner men are allowed to be ordained.

Eliza continued to serve in various appointments around Arkansas and Southern Missouriuntil around 1813 when she moved to Kansas. She continued her work with the Free Methodist Church until her death in 1832.

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; ELIZA WITHERSPOON P/21

                                                                  Read Part One HERE

In this story I will focus on a woman named Eliza Whitherspoon. She lived from 1855 - 1932. Her parents were W.A. Whiterspoon and Caroline Whitherspoon from Bates, Missoutri, USA. They were members of the Free Methodist Church. 

In the July 8, 1895, issue of "The Free Methodist," Eliza sends a ministry report from Virginia, Missouri noting that she, her mother and her sister had been "advocating the principles of Free Methodism" in that part of the country for seventeen years. She tells her readers her family is the lone Free Methodist family in the area where "God sent us help and souls were converted to God - more than twenty souls."

 Far from being a single report, Eliza begins appearing regularly in "The Free Methodist" over the next few decades as she writes ministry reports on her work as a Free Methodist Evangelist in Arkansas, Southern Missouri, and eventually Kansas.

In 1895, Eliza begins to appear in conference minutes, but not as an evangelist. That year she was a delegate to the Arkansas and Southern Missouri Annual Conference, and served on conference committees discussing education and raising money to publish the minutes.

In 1900, she again appears as a delegate to the Southern Missouri and Arkansas Conference. By 1901, the Arkansas and Southern Missouri minutes list her as a "conference evangelist" meaning she travelled and preached and was not assigned to a specific church. She was appointed to the Phelps County Missouri Circuit in 1904 and in 1905 she was appointed to the Neosho Circuit.

Read Part Twenty-Two HERE

 

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800: HELEN MAGILL WHITE P/20

                                                                  Read Part One HERE

In this story I will continue to focus on a woman named Helen Magill White. She lived from 1853 - 1944. Upon Helen's return to the US, she embarked on a teaching career with an appointment as principal of a private school in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. She left this position in 1883 to accept the opportunity to organise the Howard Collegiate Institute, a newly established women's school in West Bridgewater, Massachussets. With authority to select teachers, she appointed two of her sisters to the school, and her father contributed by investing in a laboratory and a gym.  

Although the student body grew under Helen's administration, a combination of family problems and a conflict with the trustees over her campaign for better sewage caused her to resign in 1887. She then briefly held teaching positions at Evelyn College, a women's annex to Princetown University that soon shut down and at Brooklyn High School, but her career was effectively over by the time she turned 35.

In 1890, she married Andrew Dickson White, a diplomat and former president of Cornell University. She lived with her family in Russia while Andrew served as US minister and ambassador there from 1892 - 1894. In 1897, he received a similar position in Germany,where they lived until 1903. Helen earned a reputation as a brilliant conversationalist, well able to discuss such subjects as architecture, sculpture, music and literature.

Helen eventually retired to Kittery Point, Maine, where she died in 1944.

Read Part Twenty-One HERE

 

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800: HELEN MAGILL WHITE P/19

                                                                   Read Part One HERE

In this post I will focus on a woman named Helen Magill White. She lived from 1853 - 1944. Helen was born in Providence Rhode Island, USA. She was one of five daughter of Quakers Edward Hicks Magill, a classicist, and Sarah Beans Magill. Her father's commitment to the education of women allowed for all the Magill girls to become sufficiently well educated to pursue careers as college teachers. 

Helen showed special promise as a student, and when her father assumed the position of sub-master at the prestigious Boston Public Latin School for boys, she became the only girl to study there. At age 15, she enrolled in the first class of the recently founded Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, shortly before her father became the school's president. 

After graduating in 1873 as the second in her class, Helen spent two more years at Swarthmore in what would now be called postgraduate studies. She then began studying Greek at Boston University. In 1877, she became the first American woman to earn a doctorate, with a dissertation on Greek drama. The following four years, she spent in England, pursuing classical studies at Newnham College of Cambridge University.

Read Part Twenty HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; ANNA ADAMS GORDON P/18

                                                           Read Part One HERE

In this story I continue to focus on a woman named Anna Adams Gordon. She lived from 1853 - 1931. During the First World War, Anna was instrumental in convincing President Woodrow Wilson to harden the federal government's policies agains the manufacture of alcoholic beverages, most notably by criminalising the use of foodstuffs to make alcohol. 

Later in 1919, temperance organisations scored a mjor victory with the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which fully established prohibition in the United States. After this success, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union under Anna's guidance began to turn more towards temperance enforcement, and causes peripheral to the temperance movement, such as citizenship for immigrants, women's rights in the workplace and child protection. 

In November 1922, Anna was elected president of the World Women's Temperance Union, and she resigned her presidency of the national Woman's Christian Temperance Union organisation.

Anna died in 1931.

Read Part Nineteen HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN THE SECOND HALF OF 1800; ANNA ADAMS GORDON P/17

                                                           Read Part One HERE

In this story I will focus on a woman named Anna Adams Gordon. She lived from 1853 - 1931. Her parents were James M. snd Mary Clarkson Gordon, both Christian abolitionists. They lived in Boston, Massachusetts. When she was three, the family moved to Auburndale.

Anna attended Boston High School, Lasell Seminary and Mount Holyoke College. She spend a year abroad in San Sebastian with her sister Laice Gordon Gulick, who had started a school for girls there in 1871.

In 1877, Anna met Frances E. Willard at a Dwight L. Moody revival meeting, in the building where Willard was holding temperance meetings. The two became close friends. Anna eventually moved into Willard's residence as her personal secretary. She subsequentlty followed her empoyer on her travels through the US, Canade and Europe, spending a year in England.

Anna and Willard remained close friends until Willard's death in 1898, when Anna became the vice-president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. in 1914, Anna became the president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.

Read Part Eighteeen HERE