Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church

Last updated
Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church
AbbreviationWFMS of the MEC
FormationMarch 1869
Legal statusincorporated under the laws of the State of New York in 1884
Headquarters Boston, Massachusetts
Location
  • United States
Origins Tremont Street Methodist Episcopal Church
Serviceswomen missionaries to foreign countries
Main organ
The Heathen Woman's Friend
Parent organization
Methodist Episcopal Church

Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church (acronym WFMS of the MEC) was one of three Methodist organizations in the United States focused on women's foreign missionary services; the two others were the WFMS of the Free Methodist Church of North America and the WFMS of the Methodist Protestant Church. [1]

Contents

The WFMS of the MEC was founded in the Tremont Street Methodist Episcopal Church, in Boston, Massachusetts, March 1869, and incorporated under the laws of the State of New York in 1884. Its fields of operation included: Europe (Bulgaria, Italy, France); Latin America (Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Uruguay); Asia (Malaysia, China, Korea, India, Japan, The Philippines); and Africa (Algeria, Angola, Portuguese East Africa, Rhodesia, Tunis). [1]

History

WMFS was organized in March 1869 at the Tremont Street Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston, by eight women who responded to a call sent to thirty churches. [2] The eight founders were, Mrs. Lewis Flanders; Mrs. Thomas Kingsbury; Mrs. William B. Merrill; Lois Lee Parker; Mrs. Thomas A. Rich; Mrs. H.J. Stoddard; Mrs. William Butler (Clementina Rowe Butler); and Mrs. P.T. Taylor. [3] A window in the Tremont Street Church commemorates the event and preserves their names. [2]

The first public meeting of the society was held in the Bromfield Street MEC, May 26, 1869. The discussion was quickly followed by decisive action. At a business meeting held by the women at the close of the public occasion, it was voted to raise money to send as a missionary to India, Isabella Thoburn, sister of Bishop James Mills Thoburn. An appeal for a medical woman soon followed. As a result of prompt and efficient measures to procure funds, the services of Isabella Thoburn and of Clara Swain, M.D., were secured.

These two women sailed from New York City for India, via England, on November 3, 1869, reaching their destination early in January, 1870. They were cordially received, and soon entered upon their work, Thoburn organizing schools and superintending the work of Bible readers, and Swain's medical ability gaining for her admission to many places that were closed to others. This society sent to India, China, Korea, and Japan the first woman medical missionary ever received in those countries. [2]

By 1903, its 34th year, it had 265 missionaries carrying on its work in India, China, Japan, Korea, Africa, Bulgaria, Italy, South America, Mexico, and the Philippines, by means of women's colleges, high schools, seminaries, hospitals, dispensaries, day schools, and "settlement work". [2]

Its receipts during the first year were US$4,546, and in the year 1903, US$491,091, with a total from the beginning of US$6,850,853. Six branches were organized the first year. By 1903, there were eleven, the first being the New England, and the eleventh being the Columbia River Branch. [2]

Publications

Logo of The Heathen Woman's Friend, the society's periodical Logo of the Heathen Woman's Friend.png
Logo of The Heathen Woman's Friend , the society's periodical

The first number of the society's first periodical, The Heathen Woman's Friend , appeared in June, 1869, with Harriet Merrick Warren as its editor for 24 years. [2] Other publications were established later on.

WFMS of other Methodist denominations

Other Methodist denominations developed their own women's foreign missionary organizations.

The WFMS of the Methodist Protestant Church was established in 1879. Its office was in Catonsville, Maryland. Its focused on Asia, especially China and Japan. It issued the periodical, The Woman's Missionary Record. Notable people included Mrs. E. C. Chandler, Mrs. Henry Hupfield, Mrs. D. S. Stephens, Mrs. L. K. East, and Mrs. J. F. McCulloch. [1]

The WFMS of the Free Methodist Church of North America was established in 1882. Its office was in Oneida, New York. It issued the periodical, Missionary Tidings. Notable people included Mary L. Coleman, Mrs. C. T. Bolles, and Lillian C. Jensen. [1]

Notable people

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Clarke Nind</span>

Mary Clarke Nind, known as "Our Little Bishop", was a British philanthropist and worker for social justice. It was during her time living in Minnesota that she fulfilled her calling into missionary work through the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tremont Street Methodist Episcopal Church</span>

The Tremont Street Methodist Episcopal Church, located at 740 Tremont Street in Boston, Massachusetts, was built in 1862 from a design by architect Hammatt Billings. In the late 1960s it became the New Hope Baptist Church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isabella Thoburn</span> American missionary (1840–1901)

Isabella Thoburn was an American Christian missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church best known for her establishment of educational institutions and missionary work in North India, subsequent to the East India Company's relinquishment of power to the British government in India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sophia Blackmore</span> Australian missionary

Sophia Blackmore was an Australian Christian missionary. She founded the Fairfield Methodist Schools, and also Methodist Girls' School in Singapore. She was the first unmarried woman missionary sent by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church to Singapore. She also set up a boarding home for girls, supported the early Methodist Straits Chinese Christian work, published a Christian periodical in Baba Malay, and is closely associated with the founding of Kampong Kapor Methodist Church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary F. Scranton</span> American missionary to Korea (1832–1909)

Mary Fletcher Benton Scranton was an American Methodist Episcopal Church missionary. She was the first Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church representative to Korea and the founder of the Ewha Girls School under Emperor Gojong. Today, the Ewha Girls School is the Ewha Womans University, one of the most prestigious women's schools in Asia. Scranton also founded the Tal Syeng Day School for Women in Seoul and the Training School for Bible Women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clara Swain</span> American physician and missionary

Clara A. Swain was an American physician and Christian missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church. She has been called the "pioneer woman physician in India," and as well as the "first fully accredited woman physician ever sent out by any missionary society into any part of the Non-Christian world". Her call to service in India fell from a need to have a female physician provide quality medical care to high-caste women, that were religiously secluded to zenana. Supported by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Swain left the United States in 1869, for Bareilly, India, where she spent the next twenty-seven years of her life treating women and children from illnesses, while simultaneously working to evangelize natives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nancie Monelle</span> American physician

Nancie Monelle Mansell was an American physician. She was the second physician sent out by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the first woman doctor who went out alone as a missionary into an Indian Princely State. Mansell fought against Indian baby marriages, pleading that the marriageable age of girls be raised to 14 years.

The Heathen Woman's Friend was a Christian women's monthly newspaper. Established in May 1869, it was published by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston, Massachusetts. The monthly magazine describe conditions in the mission fields of the church, document the work of the society, and provide assistance to missionaries. The Heathen Woman's Friend was launched with volume 1, number 1 in May 1869. Its final issue, volume 27, number 6, was issued December 1895. The publication was relaunched as the Woman's Missionary Friend with volume 27, number 7 in January 1896, and ended with volume 73, number 7 in August 1940.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harriet Merrick Warren</span> American journalist

Harriet Merrick Warren was an American editor. She was also an untiring worker in the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, its first recording secretary, and for years, president of the New England Branch. Warren is remembered as a "major leader of 'Woman's Work for Woman'" movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annie Ryder Gracey</span> American writer and missionary

Annie Ryder Gracey was an American author and missionary of the long nineteenth century. She wrote two books based on her travels, Eminent Missionary Women and Woman's Medical Work in Mission Fields. The history of the literature produced by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church was closely linked with Gracey, who served as chairman of the committee on literature, and created missionary literature for the Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Manning Hodgkins</span>

Louise Manning Hodgkins was an American educator, author, and editor from Massachusetts. After completing her studies at Pennington Seminary and Wilbraham Wesleyan Academy, she became a teacher and preceptress at Lawrence College, before receiving a Master of Arts degree from that institution in 1876. She taught at Wellesley College for over a decade before turning her attentions to writing and editing. Her main works included Nineteenth Century Authors of Great Britain and the United States, Study of the English Language, and Via Christi. She served as editor of The Heathen Woman's Friend, the first organ of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and also edited Milton lyrics : L'allegro, Il penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas and Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum. She died in 1935.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cornelia Moore Chillson Moots</span> American missionary and temperance evangelist (1843–1929)

Cornelia Moore Chillson Moots was an American missionary and temperance evangelist. She was one of four pioneer missionaries of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary A. Miller</span> American editor, publisher of missionary periodicals

Mary A. Miller was an American editor and publisher of missionary periodicals. She was also the author of History of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Protestant Church, 1896. Miller's name appeared as missionary editor of the woman's department in the Methodist Recorder, published in Pittsburgh, and since 1885, as editor and publisher at the Woman's Missionary Record, organ of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Protestant Church. She was the first editor of the Woman's Missionary Record, serving in that role for ten years. Miller served as corresponding secretary of the society for six years, represented the society in a number of the annual conferences of the church, in two general conferences, and in 1888, was a delegate to the World's Missionary Conference in London, England. Miller died in 1925.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Fisher Beiler</span> American missionary, newspaper editor

Anna Fisher Beiler was a British-born American Christian missionary and newspaper editor, who engaged in temperance, missionary, and philanthropic work. Associated with the Methodist Episcopal Church, she served as Secretary of the Bureau for District of Alaska. She thoroughly identified herself with this work, and visited the region in 1897, that she might do better at directing it. She made an extended tour in the service of that region in the interests of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and supervised the erection of the building in Unalaska. Beiler was a prominent officer of the Woman's Home Missionary Society for many years and influential in the shaping of its policy and work. She lectured on Alaska in many states, increasing the public interest.

Beulah Woolston was a pioneering American missionary teacher in China. With her sister, she founded schools, translated textbooks, and edited a Chinese-language newspaper.

Lucinda L. Combs-Stritmatter was an American physician who was the first female medical missionary to provide medical care in China. She is credited with establishing the first women's hospital in Beijing. Combs was a pioneer in women's medical care while serving the Women's Foreign Ministry Society's North China Mission for seven years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clementina Butler</span> American evangelist and author

Clementina Butler was an American evangelist and author. She was a founder of the Ramabai Association, an organization that established the first school in India for widowed women. She was also the founder and chair of the "Committee on Christian Literature for Women and Children in Mission Fields, Inc. In addition to other writings, she was the author of three biographies: her father's, her mother's, as well as Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati : pioneer in the movement for the education of the child-widow of India (1922).

Lucilla Green Cheney, M.D. was an American physician and Christian missionary. Beginning in 1876, she served a medical mission in Bareilly, British India under the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. She died of cholera two years into her mission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Hyde Hibbard</span> American temperance leader (1820–1913)

Maria Hyde Hibbard was an American educator and an executive in two women's organizations. She served as President of the New York State Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and of the New York Branch of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marie Augusta Oldham</span>

Marie Augusta Oldham (1857–1938) was an India-born American assistant missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC). She was also the first President of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in Malaysia.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Foreign Missions Conference of North America Committee of Reference and Counsel (1919). Foreign Missions Year Book of North America ... Committee of Reference and Counsel of the Foreign Missions Conference of North America, Incorporated. pp. 103–05, 156. Retrieved 30 May 2022.PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Howe, Julia Ward; Graves, Mary Hannah (1904). Representative Women of New England (Public domain ed.). New England Historical Publishing Company. p.  97-98.PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
  3. Baker, Frances J. (1898). The story of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1869-1895 (Public domain ed.). Curts & Jennings. p.  16.PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .

Sources