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A Movement for Wholeness in a Fragmented World: Women, Religion and Activism in 19th Century America
While the Second Great Awakening began in the late eighteenth century, it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that the movement gained traction within the United States. This Protestant Christian revival movement came from a Postmillennial concept at the beginning of the nineteenth century that the eminent return of Christ meant the general population needed to prepare the world for his return. The Second Great Awakening spawned new and uniquely American protestant denominations. One of the traditions, the reform movement, began to take shape and spread across eastern and Midwestern towns in the United States. The effects of the revival movement on men such as Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone often become the focus of both historical and religious writings while the women of the movement tend to be ignored. The Second Great Awakening also changed the way women viewed their role in society. Changing the social structure of private and public sphere, women found strength in their newfound religious experiences. These women gravitated to the revival movement in the late eighteenth century in large numbers, constituting the majority of Christian converts and dedicated parishioners. Betty DeBerg noted that in 1892 a survey of eight churches resulted in the fact that only twenty-eight percent of a congregation’s membership and thirty-eight percent of the church worshippers were male. This meant that to keep a church going women had to take on roles as leaders in their church, such leadership needs saw women fighting for their right to become ordained as they took over many roles that previously belonged to men. Religious fervor also helped to inspire many women to provide help to the less fortunate and fight for the purity they desired. It led to women stepping out of the home or private sphere to enact social change within their society. But, women who stayed at home worked just as hard behind the scenes. Author Nancy Hardesty contends that one of the largest changes to occur in the nineteenth century happened within the family structure . Where before families were housed together in multi-generational family structures with Women in charge of the home, the nineteenth century saw a number of changes in this structure. Families no longer lived within multi-generational structures and the birthrate declined leaving the mother “in charge but without real authority.” While women such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton garnered a majority of historical interest, recently scholars are turning to lesser known women who found their true calling through the religion they held so dear. Even when scholars focus on such prodigious women of the movement, their views on faith and the importance they placed on the faith of the women who followed them is not addressed.
Although historians agree that religion played an important role for women working in public for social reform, they disagree on the extent of religious impact on women who fought for political reform. One major difference in the research is the focal point of the researcher. Looking at a topic such as this one must include not just historical works, but the works of religious historians and authors as well. When including their works as an overall source within the subject matter, one must consider the point of view of the researcher. Looking at the works of religious authors are just as important to the historiography of women, religion and activism as the works of historical researchers. Both fields of study looked at together allows for a more comprehensive discussion to occur. Historical scholars often overlook the impact of religion on women and the activism they took up, religious scholars tend to only focus on the religion, often failing to mention any activism that women took up as a mantle of their faith.
One of the first historians to focus on evangelical women and its relationship to feminism and activism is Nancy Hardesty. Her book Women Called to Witness: Evangelical Feminism in the 19th Century argues that female activism came about through organized Christian involvement. She claims that, “nineteenth century American feminism was deeply rooted in evangelical revivalism.” As one of the first writers on religious women in the public sphere she delves into a topic that had little in the way of historical background. She views the religious reforms and social work in the name of God as activism, this brings in the idea that not all activism is the same. In contrast, Lori Ginzeberg argues in Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics and Class in the Nineteenth-Century United States, that it wasn’t until the postwar period that the religious woman stepped out into the public sphere and became active political and social reformers. Catherine Brekus agrees with Ginzeberg. She states in her article, Female Preaching in Early Nineteenth-Century America that women did not begin as early supporters of the women’s rights movement. These evangelical women were less likely to argue against the status quo of social hierarchy. She suggests it wasn’t until later in the nineteenth century that women began to transfer their interests into the various reforms that began to emerge. Female preachers took special precautions to insure that they were not mistaken as feminist leaders, they felt this would belittle their work and question the fact that their “pious” Christian voices deserved to be heard. But it did not stop some ordained women from reaching out and publically activating for causes they held dear. While women found it necessary to fight for leadership roles, they did not always attribute their fight as a form of activism. For these women, they viewed their fight as a step towards living their faith to the fullest.
Betty DeBerg on the other hand looks at the activism incited by religion as a powerful shift in the social structure. In her book, Ungodly Women: Gender and the First Wave of American Fundamentalism, DeBerg argues that the religious revival movement began a push for women to disrupt traditional gender roles. The social structure had men as the “economic warrior” or breadwinner while women had assignments that kept them at home. These structured roles helped “ease moral conflicts inherent in aggressive capitalism.” This allowed men to express their “manhood” in the capitalistic marketplace, where business became the new blood sport. The home turned into a refuge for the male figure where he could remove himself from the dirty work of business. The kind of “refuge” status led men to create a “virtuous woman” who showed kindness and charity. The home was the private and female domain whereas the world of business, economics and politics took on the public and male domain. It was the work of early feminists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton that questioned the growing separation in the ideal of public and private spheres. With the rise of religious fervor in the nineteenth century, women found that they gained more power within their home and religious circles. According to DeBerg, the fight for ordination of women created a controversy that lasted for years. One editorial linked the “women’s efforts to win ordination within the Presbyterian Church to woman suffrage” showing that at the time, people connected religion to activism.
The second debate that encompasses the historical works of women, activism and religion revolves around the question of who is truly an activist. The work produced on the relationship between women’s religious life and their activism is varied. Many works focus on biographies of specific women. Others look at the activities of women in reform movements. Still others look at women who fought to become preachers and the struggles they encountered on their way to ordination and the fight they endured just to stay in the pulpit. Many historians attempt to solve these questions by turning their focus on individual women and writing biographies. Through books and articles, the use of a specific individual as a vehicle to the argument has created an interesting discussion between authors. In the instance of Antoinette Brown-Blackwell, one of the first women to become officially ordained as a preacher in the United States, many historians focus on her writings and her work as a suffragette. Often her ordination is given as background but not effectively presented as a possible impetus to her activist leanings. In their article, Hearing Women Speak: Antoinette Brown Blackwell and the Dilemma of Authority, authors Elizabeth Munson and Greg Dickinson take a different course. They speculate that due to her religious calling Blackwell felt compelled to fight against masculine ideals in an effort to help women gain their public voice.
In Antoinette Brown Blackwell: A Biography, Elizabeth Cazden notes that Brown Blackwell maintained that women needed to have more control over all parts of their lives and property, this included those women who married. She fought in support of the Married Woman’s Property Act in New York, which advocated for married women to control any earnings they made, be able to make contracts and to own property. Her religion also had her differing with noted feminists of the day, including Lucy Stone and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. While these women fought for an easier way to divorce, Brown Blackwell disagreed, in keeping with her religious philosophy Brown Blackwell viewed marriage as more than a contract, to her it signified a sacred bond created by God. For Antoinette Brown Blackwell, her religion did not detract from her ability to advocate publically for what she believed in, it just informed it.
Loretta Long on the other hand focuses on the wife of Alexander Campbell, one of the men responsible for the creation of one of the largest domestic grown religious movements called the restoration movement. Long calls Selina Campbell a “soldier” and writes that she often functioned as an activist, but in a very different way. Campbell believed that while following the roles of family and private sphere functions, women were no less equal to men. She worked diligently to promote her faith and serve God. Both Selina and Alexander took up leadership roles in this movement. While she may not have actively and publicly voiced her activism, her behind the scenes work allowed numerous women to stretch their voices and begin express their beliefs publicly. While the two different styles of research and writing bring forward different aspects of a decades old argument, it shows that the discussion on what is true activism and when did women go from focusing on their religion to a more public and vocal activism begin is still just as intense. Beginning in the 1980’s the arguments have structured themselves through both a religious ideology and various historical sects; women and feminism, religious history and social/cultural history.
Even as historians research and present writings on the frontline activists, their beliefs on the importance of religion on their followers can be ignored. Kathy Kern looks to the final years of Elizabeth Cady Stanton to show how important she viewed religion. In her book Mrs. Stanton’s Bible, Kern looks at the final push for women’s rights devised by Stanton. The book focuses on Stanton’s complex relationship and views of feminism and the rising popularity of Protestant Christianity. The book pushes the notions that there was more than a straightforward disagreement between the women’s rights movement. Her attempts at writing a critique of the bible focusing on passages that pertained to women and writing critical comments in regards to the passages demonstrates how important the presence of religion was to many women choosing activism as an expression of their entrance into the public sphere. In contrast, when the religion of women and activism begins the historical focus overlooks women who provided leadership for the religious movement and activated in their own way, but the study of their movement endures, especially fringe religious movements becomes the emphasis. In Outside the Mainstream: Women’s Religion and Women Religious Leaders in Nineteenth-Century America, Mary Badnarowski turns to four marginalized religious groups that provided leadership roles for women. According to Badnarowski, women have become so hidden historically when discussing religious movements because of the masculine language often used for the divine. This linked the male leadership relationship more seamlessly than the female. The look at the more marginal religious movements of the nineteenth century shows how attractive it was for women to find a place where they could lead and participate equally.
Even though the two different styles of research and writing bring forward different aspects of a decades old argument, it shows that the discussion on what is true activism. It also shows that when did women go from focusing on their religion to a more public and vocal activism their feelings and actions on behalf of said activism could be just as intense. Beginning in the 1980’s the arguments have structured themselves through both a religious ideology and various historical sects; women and feminism, religious history and social/cultural history. Each different viewpoint asks the same questions often with differing results. Through the eyes of religious scholars, there is a new urgency to publicly acknowledge the feminist strategies and leanings of some of the earliest women leaders. For historians, combining the role of religion and activism brings forth new questions and more individuals to acknowledge. Whether in the private sphere or public sphere, women saw the revival movement as a chance to step outside the social construct that regarded their domain as house and home to forward an agenda which allowed for leadership skills and a public presence to emerge and grow.
The amount of primary source documentation is significant. With a renewed focus on ordained women and female religious leaders, speeches given at council meetings and correspondence takes on a whole new meaning. Using Selina Campbell as an example, never before has an author looked to the large collection of personal documents and letters housed at Bethany College and the Disciples of Christ Historical Society. Using documents such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Women’s Bible could bring out new and interesting ideas as to how women viewed their role in the home and in public when it comes not only to their religion, but to activism as well. Newspaper articles that detail the accounts of new pastors coming in, which acknowledge the installation of women as pastors can become a primary sources document to showcase the number of women stepping into leadership roles within their congregations and how such a step could lead to a public life of activism, as with the life of Antoinette Brown Blackwell. One of the most important sources comes from the Triennial Meeting of the Woman’s National Conference. A speech given by Frances Willard speaks not only to women in regards to their activism and how women should approach their lives in the public eye, it also focuses on the role of religion and religious leaders within the world of activism.
Located in the Library of Congress and digitized on both their site and the Fordham University Modern History Sourcebook website the address given by Frances Willard at the Frist Triennial Meeting of the Woman’s National Council. Frances Willard influenced many women through her leadership with the Women Christian Temperance Union. She widened the scope of the WCTU views from primarily temperance to a broader look at women’s rights as a whole and included in her organization the fight for the right to vote. While the speech given in 1891 is often looked at for it distinct differences of opinion from Elizabeth Cady Stanton, that is not what makes the speech important for further research. This speech is important as a primary source specifically due to her addressing of activism and the role religion is playing at that particular time. To speak of both together in the same address is unique and requires concentrated studying. While there is no specific statements to the fact, there are nods to the women who are working privately in a role that is not publically acknowledged as activist.
The speech looks to women taking leadership roles in their churches and religions organizations as equal to women fighting for temperance and for the right to vote. Willard addressed the need for women to work together no matter their affiliation. According to Willard if women could organize under one large confederation of organizations, they could become established in every town and allow for “women’s work of every kind.” Through her speech it is clear that Willard is working towards a united front of the various women’s movements that are occurring at this time. The First Triennial Meeting of the Woman’s National Council occurred from February 22 thru February 25, 1891. The audience consisted of women and men who participated in the social and political activism movements of the late nineteenth century. Speaking of religion within the context of activism could have been a potentially controversial topic. Some feminist activist, like Stanton for example, ridiculed religion due to the limitations and gendered language within the Christian faith and male dominated leadership. That Willard chose this time to remark on the role of religion and especially the role that ordained women played within the world of activism, shows that the correlation between both did not go unnoticed at that time.
What is most unique about Willard’s speech is that it places an importance not seen before on the role that religion plays in the activism that women participate in. When discussing what women have been doing as they begin to reach past their perceived roles of private sphere Willard remarks on the public atmosphere women have stepped into. It is important to note that, in her speech, the first women she acknowledges are two women who have become ordained within their denominations. These women, Rev. Juniata Breckenridge “a graduate of Oberlin Theological Seminary, now by act of a congregational council licensed as a preacher in that conservative communion” and Rev. Mrs. Drake “recently ordained to preach the Gospel by the largest council of congregational ministers ever assembly by the state of Iowa”, are not well known activists today, but to Willard, they are impactful enough for her audience to be mentioned by name. Her mention of their quest and accomplishment in their ordinations provides support for the argument that religion helped to bring women into the public sphere through activism. For these ordained women, just graduating seminary and being able to work in their chosen profession as ministers is activism of its own kind. Willard also portions out a section of her address to speak on women in religion. Through this speech one can find that religion is an extremely important topic, not only to Willard the speech giver, but to her audience as well. To commit such a large portion of her speech to the role of religion in the lives of these women shows the significance women of the time placed on their religious life. She spoke of how “in all this discord about religious theory there has been very little controversy about religious living,” using this to bring forth the argument that social reform that springs from religion is an extension of living religiously.
The speech also looks at the discord of religious theory that is part of public discussion at this time. She brings to the audience how man has been destructive in their role of religion. This can be read twofold. While many believe she may be discussing mankind, it can be read that as a woman’s suffragist and activist, Willard is blaming men for the “destructive” separation of the Christian church. She accounts that at this time there are “one hundred and forty distinct groups.” The number is not including non-religious or sectarian groups on the fringe. She blames this separation and questioning on the “incomplete masculine mind.” Further research on how women religious activists viewed their male counterparts may be needed but there was obviously some criticism of how men themselves have been handling the leadership of religious organizations.
With some further reading into the speech, it is possible to find support for the argument that women are also using their religious experience to activate in the private sphere. Much like Selina Campbell did during her life, Willard argues to legislate for not just Womanhood but also for children and the home. This can be interpreted to show that women in the home were just as concerned about rights as those publically activating, but were going about their activism in a quiet and behind the scenes way. They found through the religious zeal of revivalism an outlet for presenting their skills and opinions. She speaks of the number of women who are teachers which is not necessarily part of being an activist and is most commonly considered a feminine position and essentially still part of the private sphere as it includes the education of children. She also looks at the number of women serving as deaconesses in their church. This is not necessarily a public form of activism, but women had to fight for these positions and work behind the scenes with the leadership of their churches and denominations to effect such a change. As author Lori Ginzberg wrote, women’s activism often became an effort of behind the scenes work, work that could be performed in the home. For women, this passive role in activism often worked to their advantage because, “the more invisible, that is to say, characteristically feminine – this influence was, the more effective.” This can also be attributed to the large number of female converts that came through the Second Great Awakening.
The most interesting paragraph is a relatively small paragraph where Willard that women who leave their position as a teach and take on work that is unusual for women “does two excellent things; she makes room for someone waiting for a place and helps to open a new vocation for herself and other women.” This means the woman not only allows for additional employment for women by vacating the role, but opens up new jobs and experiences for other women who follow. This may be a form of passive activism as women take roles that aren’t necessarily the norm but were either of interest for the woman or paid better and allowed the woman to live a life different from what she currently led.
The speech of Frances Willard could truly enhance further research into the field of religious women and ordained women and their role in activism. The mention of the two women ministers who are not well known today could become an interesting starting point. Why were they so important to Willard and were they equally important to the audience? It also works to show the more passive activism of religious women who stayed in the private sphere, often working hard behind the scenes to affect change. Women such as Selina Campbell who helped to create an entire religious movement with her husband but has not been recognized for her work until recently. This could provide analysis on where religion and activism united and where they separated. Women serving as deaconesses in their church may not have been particularly activist in leaning, just committed to their religious beliefs and their local church and saw serving in this way as an outward expression of such commitment.
Overall Frances Willard’s speech has enough tidbits for researchers to continue on with their projects. It could help future research as historians begin to build the gap between historically prominent women activists and the roles played by ordained and religious women as they became leaders in their churches.
Bibliography
Primary Source
Willard, Frances E. “Women and Organization.” Modern History Source Book, August 1997, accessed November 2016, http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1891willard.asp
Secondary Sources
Bednarowski, Mary Farrell. 1980. Outside the Mainstream: Women’s Religion and Women Religious Leaders in Nineteenth-Century America. Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 48, no. 2: 207-231.
Brekus, Catherine A. Strangers & Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
Brekus, Catherine A. “Female Preaching in Early Nineteenth-Century America.” The Center for Christian Ethics, 2009.
Cazden, Elizabeth. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, a biography. Old Westbury, NY: The Feminist Press, 1983.
DeBerg, Betty. Ungodly Women: Gender and the First Wave of American Fundamentalism. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990.
Ginzberg, Lori D. Women and the work of benevolence: morality, politics, and class in the nineteenth-century United States. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990.
Hardesty, Nancy. Women called to witness: evangelical feminism in the 19th century. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984.
Kern, Kathi. Mrs. Stanton’s Bible. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001.
Long, Loretta M. The life of Selina Campbell: a fellow soldier in the cause of restoration. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2001.
Munson, Elizabeth, and Greg Dickinson. “Hearing Women Speak: Antoinette Brown Blackwell and the Dilemma of Authority.” Journal of Women’s History 10, no. 1 (1998): 108-26. doi:10.1353/jowh.2010.0573.
Betty A. DeBerg, Ungodly Women: Gender and the First Wave of American Fundamentalism (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990),75.
Nancy Hardesty, Women Called to Witness: Evangelical Feminism in the 19th Century (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984), 37-39.
Hardesty, 38-39.
Hardesty, 9-10.
Lori D. Ginzberg, Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics, and Class in the Nineteenth-century United States (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 136.
Catherine A. Brekus, “Female Preaching in Early Nineteenth-Century America,” The Center for Christian Ethics, 2009, 24-25, http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/98759.pdf.
Brekus, 334-335.
DeBerg, 13.
DeBerg, 19.
DeBerg, 72-74.
DeBerg, 85.
Elizabeth Munson and Greg Dickinson, “Hearing Women Speak: Antoinette Brown Blackwell and the Dilemma of Authority,” Journal of Women’s History 10, no. 1 (1998): 109, doi:10.1353/jowh.2010.0573.
Bednarowski, 100.
Bednarowski, 100-101.
Loretta M. Long, The Life of Selina Campbell: A Fellow Soldier in the Cause of Restoration (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2001), 2-10.
Kathi Kern, Mrs. Stanton’s Bible (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 3-9.
Mary Farrell Bednarowski, Outside the Mainstream: Women’s Religion and Women Religious Leaders in Nineteenth-Century America. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 1980, 48, no. 2, 223-225.
Frances E. Willard, “Women and Organization,” Modern History Source Book, August 1997, accessed November 2016, http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1891willard.asp.
Willard.
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Ginzberg, 15.
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