EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: ZILPHA ELAW P/17

                           Read Part One HERE

In this post I will focus on a woman named Zilpha Elaw. She lived from 1790 - 1873.

Zilpha was born to free black parents in Pennsylvania. One of twenty-two children, she was raised in a strong Christian home until age twelve, when her mother unexpectedly passed away and young Zilpha was sent to live with Pierson and Rebecca Mitchell, a Quaker couple who became her adoptive parents. Amidst this instability, she embraced the Methodist tradition and became a member of the church as a teenager.

At twenty, Zilpha married Joseph Elaw, who worked as a fuller in Burlington, New Jersey. The couple's only daughter, Rebecca, was born a few years before Zilpha suffered the loss of Hannah, her older sister.It was Hanna's deathbed premonition of her sister preaching that encouragd Zilpha to preach her first sermon at a camp meeting in 1819. She hid this calling from Joseph for a time.

Things changed in 1823 when Joseph succumber to illness, leaving behind an eleven- year old Rebecca and her mother, who felt the call to preach again. Transitioning out of her role as stay-at-home mother, Zilpha threw herself into service. For nearly two decades, she worked as a domestic servant to provide for her daughter, opened a school for black children with Quaker support in Burlington, and travelled extensively as an itinerant preacher. Zilpha's circuit carried her as far north as Maine and as far south as Virginia, allowing her to adress slave owners and the enslaved, white and black, women and men alike. Her memoir recounts what is was like to be a woman of colour travelling alone across the country, narrowly escaping threats of violence, imprisonment, and enslavement.

P.S. I will contimue to share the story of Zilpha Elaw in my next post.

Read Part Eighteen HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: CATHERINE MUMFORD BOOTH P/16

                                                                                    Read Part One HERE

This is my final post on on a woman named Catherine Mumford Booth. She lived from 1829 - 1890

Early in 1873, Catherine began to hold services in Portsmouth. Within a few months, she gathered a congregation of 3,000 people in a music-hall frequented mostly by soldiers and sailors.

Catherine presented her ideas about the ministry of women in the pamphlet published in 1859 "Female Ministry: Or Women's Right To Preach The Gospel." She also supported the suffrage movement hoping that women voters "would be a powerful voice for good in the world." She believed that intellectually woman was man's equal, but the lack of training or lack of opportunity made her sometimes inferior.

When the Salvation Army was established in 1878, Catherine began recruitment of young women, mostly from working classes, later called "Hallelujah lasses," whose task was to bring relief to female and child residents of slum districts. She contributed significantly to the establishment of rescue homes for young prostitutes and wayward and delinquent women.

On 21 June 1888, Catherine made her last public appearance in the City Temple. She was stricken with cancer and retired to Clacton at the Sea. She died on 4 October, 1890.

Read Part Seventeen HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: CATHERINE MUMFORD BOOTH: P/15

 

 Read Part One HERE

In this post I continue to focus on a woman named Catherine Mumford Booth. She lived from 1829 - 1890.

 Catherine did not intend to change women's domestic roles, but she objected to their alleged intellectual and moral inferiority.In 1858, she began to assist her husband in his pastoral work at Gateshead, Durham. Initially, William was reluctant to female preaching, but gradually he changed his mind. In 1857-1858, at Brighouse, where he held his Methodist New Connexion pastorate, he encouraged his wife to take "a class of female members" and to teach Sunday School.

In 1860, Catherine began to preach herself with the full approval of her husband, although many people were initially bewildered, because Victorian women were traditionally expected to devote themselves to domestic work and avoid the public sphere. However, Catherine was strongly convinced that women were not intellectually inferior to men and had the right to preach. 

She soon proved to be an exceptional orator and contributed significantly to moral and social reform. She preached in around the dockland of Rotherhithe in South London and Bermondsey. During her husband's evangelistic tours, Catherine shared his pastoral work. Her ministry was very popular, everywhere attracting crowded audiences, which often included members of the middle class who wanted to contribute to the evangelisation of destitute slum dwellers.

In 1865, William founded the East London Mission, but he did not earn any money at that time. Catherine became the sole bread winner for the family. She preached in West London and also sold her pamphlets. In her writings and public speeches, she advocated the employment of women evangelists.

P.S. I will continue my story on Catherine Mumford Booth in my next post.

Read Part Sixteen HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: CATHERINE MUMFORD BOOTH; P/14

                                                                                    Read Part One HERE

In this post I will focus on a woman named Catherine Mumford Booth. She lived from 1829 - 1890.

Catherine's parents were ardent members of a Wesleyan Methodist chapel. She spent much of her childhood confined to bed and suffered much from spine, lung and heart trouble. She was mainly educated at home by her mother who encouraged her daughter to read the Bible because she believed it contains supreme wisdom. Confined to bed, Catherine read the Bible from cover to cover eight times before she turned twelve. She also read books about theology and church history. A book about the life and work of John Wesley exerted a profound influence on her future vocation.

In 1834, the family moved to Boston, Lincolnshire. Catherine's father was very active in the local temperance movement. Catherine joined a temperance movement and became the secretary of a Juvenile Temperance Society at the age of 12.

In 1844, her family moved to Brixton, where Cathering joined a Wesleyan congregation and was also involved in the temperance movement. She led a girl's Sunday school class in another part in London.

In 1852, she met William Booth and they were married in 1855. She admired her husband's work and hoped that he would share her views on the position and mission of women. 

P.S. In my next post I will continue to share the story of Catherine Mumford Booth.

Read Part Fifteen HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: FRANCES DANA BARKER GAGE P/13

                                                                             Read Part One HERE

This is my last post on a woman named Frances Gage. She lived from 1808 - 1884.

In the fall of 1863, Frances returned north, after having spend a year in the south, and began a lecture tour, speaking to the people of her "experiences among the Freedmen."She gave a truthful portrayal of slavery and its barbarity, its demoralisation of master and man, and the intensely human character of the slave, who for two hundred years had preserved so much goodness, hope and a desire for knowledge.

She believed that by removing prejudice and inspiring confidence in the Emancipation Proclamation and by striving to unite the people on this great issue, she could do more than in any other way to end the war and relieve the soldier - such was the aim of her lectures.

In the summer of 1864, Frances travelled down the Missippi to help the injured at Mephis, Vicksburg and Natchez. A few months' experience among the Union refugees and fugitives convinced her that her best work for all was in the lecturing field, in rousing the hearts of the multitude to good deeds. So she again entered the lecture field in the west, speaking almost nightly.

After the war, women's rights leaders and friends like Elizabeth Stady Canton, Susan B. Anthony, Amelia Bloomer, Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown encouraged Frances to be the women's rights emissary in America's Midwest.

In September 1865, Frances was crippled when her carriage overturned at Galesburg, Illinois, after she spoke at Edward Beecher's Indiana church.After recuperating at her daughter's home for nearly a year, she decided to move to Lambertsville, New Jersey. This pushed her closer to publishers, other activists and national meetings that were often held in New York City and Philadelphia.

In her address to the First Anniversary of the American Equal Rights Association, she asked that women should get the vote: "Because it is right, and because there are wrongs in the community that can be righted in no other way." She also complained about social attitudes that restricted women to the household: "You have attempted to mold seventeen million of human souls in one shape, and make them all do one thing."

Soon thereafter, Frances was permanently disabled by a stroke. Meanwhile, the women's suffrage organisations were re-organised and re-directed. Frances could not participate in the political strategising, nor could she travel or address audiences, so she focused instead upon writing novels, using this medium to promote temperance and women's rights.

After being an invalid for 10 years, Frances died in Greenwich, Connecticut on November 10, 1884.

Read Part Fourteen HERE

 

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: FRANCES DANA BARKER GAGE P/12

                                                                             Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Frances Dana Barker Gage. she lived from 1808- 1884

In all her warfare against social wrongs - temperance, slavery and women's rights - Frances' fight for the rights of her own gender subjected her to the most trying persecution and insult. In the region of Ohio, where she lived, she stood almost alone, but she was never inclined to yield.

In 1851, Frances presided over a women's right convention in Akron, Ohio, where her opening speech introducing Sojourner Truth attracted much attention.

Frances stepped comfortably into the roles of public organiser and orator. She was a talented public speaker for more than 30 years to audiences both men and women. She worked as Stanton's agent, canvassing for signatures in New York State and Ohio, and supported Susan B. Anthony's program to make legal changes in the state laws.

Between 1853 and 1857, the Gages lived in St Louis, Missouri. Missouri was a slave state and Frances' ideas and her submissions to local newspapers were not welcome. She boldly stated her beliefs whenever the opportunity arose, and was often threatened with violence due to her anti-slavery views. She was soon branded as an abolitionist, and the family endured threats of violence and attempts to burn them out.

In 1861, she took part in the political campaign that led to the passage of Ohio's first Woman's Rights Bill. In that same year the Civil War began. Four of her sons joined the Union Army and Frances began lecturing on supporting the troops.

In the autumn of 1862, Frances and her daughter Mary went to the Sea Islands in South Carolina to train ex-slaves. There she met and befriended Clara Barton.

P.S. I will continue to share my story on Frances Gage in my next post. 

Read Part Thirteen HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: FRANCES DANA BARKER GAGE P/11

 

Read Part One HERE

In this post I will focus on a woman named Frances Dana Barker Gage. She lived from 1798 - 1884.

Frances was born in Union, Ohio, USA. Her parents were among the first settlers in the United States Norrthwest Territory. A farmer's daughter, Frances as educated at a log cabin in the woods, spun the graments she wore, made cheese and butter, and did outdoors chores.

Ftances made frequent visits to her grandmother, May Bancroft Dana. Mary Dana was a radical on the subject of slavery, and Frances learned from her to hate the word, and all it represented. Frances was frequently laughed at in childhood because she sympathised with the poor fugitives from slavery, who often found their way to the neighbourhood in which she lived, seeking the kindness and charity of people.

It had not yet become a crime to help a slave, and Frances' mother often sent her daughter on errands of mercy to the nearby cabins where fugitive slaves sought shelter, often to be caught and sent back to their masters. Frances early became familiar with their suffering and their needs.

At the age of twenty, Frances Dana Barker married James L. Gage, an abolitionist lawyer from McConnellsville, Ohio, who also hated the system of slavery in the South.

Frances Gage was a dedicated advocate of social reform movements that were organised during the decades before the Civil War and she always found herself in a minority through all the struggling years between 1832 and 1865.

The editor of the State Journal invited her to write weekly for his columns for a year. This, at the time, seemed to her a great achievement. But when she wrote about her opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law, the editor sent a note saying her services were not longer wanted.

Frances' professional writing career brought her regional fame. Writing in regional journals as Aunt Fanny, she offered a warm domestic persona who offered advice and support to isolated housewives in Ohio. She wrote letters, essays, poetry, children's stories and novels.

Frances extended her circle of acquaintances beyond Ohio by wrting letters to women she admired. Amelia Bloomer, engaged her to write for the New York State temperance paper, the Lilly. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, whose 1848 Seneca Falls Convention launched the women's rights movement in America, was also on staff.

P.S. I will continue to share the story of Frances Gage in my next post.

Read Part Twelve HERE

EVANGELICAL WOMEN IN EARLY 1800: CLARA BARTON P/10

 

                                                    Read Part One HERE

In this post I will continue my focus on a woman named Clara Barton. She lived from 1821 - 1912.

When the Civil War began in 1861, Clara quit her job and made it her mission to bring supplies to the Union soldiers in need - among them men from the 6th Massachusetts Infantry. This started a life-long career of aiding people in times of conflict and disaster. In 1862, she received official permission to transport supplies to battlefields and was at every major battle in Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina., where she also tended to the wounded and became known as "the angel of the battlefield." She was officially named head nurse for one of General Benjamin Butlers Units in 1864, even though she had no formal medical training. She joined Frances Gage in helping to prepare slaves for their lives in freedom. After the war, Clara helped locate missing soldiers, mark thousands of graves, and testified in Congres about her wartime experiences.

In 1869, Clara travelled throughout Europe to regain her health. While in Switzerland, she learned about the International Red Cross, established in Geneva in 1864. Returning to the US, Clara built support for the creation of an American society of the Red Cross by writing pamphlets, lecturing and meeting with President Rutherford B. Hayes. On May 21, 1881, the American Association of the Red Cross was formed. Clara was elected president in June. In 1882, the US joined the International Red Cross.

Clara remained with the Red Cross until 1904, attending national and international meetings, aiding with disasters, helping the homeless and poor, and writing about her life and the Red Cross. She was also an ardent supporter of women's suffrage. In 1904, she established the National First Aid Association of America, an organisation that emphasized emergency preparedness and developed first aid kits. She died in 1912 of pneumonia. Her Glen Echo, Maryland home, became a National Historic Site in 1975, the first dedicated to the achievements of a woman.

Read Part Eleven HERE