American women's foreign mission movement : "cooperation of eve with the redeemer" in evangelical missions
Author(s)
Advisor
Roberts, Timothy M.Date
2006Publisher
Bilkent University
Language
English
Type
ThesisItem Usage Stats
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Abstract
This thesis aims to depict American women’s “indispensable” participation in
the United States’ foreign mission movement. The emphasis in this thesis is on
missionary wives and single missionary women both in mission fields and in the
missionary societies controlled in the United States. The concept of separate spheres
of male and female influence forms the center point of this thesis and the
participation of women in the foreign mission movement is discussed from this
perspective. It was the divine sanction, the religious service that stimulated
American women to enter the mission work in the 19th century. Although the
starting point did not embrace a feminist frame, the process of implementation did
lead American women into public roles independent of male influence. In the name
of this accomplishment, this thesis aims to explore what many historians have
neglected to analyze. American missionary women, in the United States or in the
foreign mission lands, created a new professional career for educated women, broke
the bondage of the domestic sphere, expanded the involvement of women in cultural
and political interaction, and represented the American woman to the whole world.
Keywords
19th Century American WomanAmerican Missionaries
Evangelism
Woman’s Boards
American Women’s Foreign Mission Movement
The Doctrine of Seperate Spheres