Woman's Union Missionary Society of America for Heathen Lands

Last updated

Woman's Union Missionary Society of America for Heathen Lands (also known as, Woman's Union Missionary Society of New York) was an American Christian mission organization. Established in 1861, its headquarters were at 41 Bible House, Astor Place, New York City. The first meeting called to consider organizing a society was gathered in a private parlor in New York City on January 9, 1861, and addressed by a returned missionary from Burma. At a subsequent meeting on January 10, the organization was effected, with Sarah Platt Doremus as president. [1] The society's object was to "send out and maintain single women as Bible-readers and teachers, and to raise up native female laborers in heathen lands". [2]

Contents

History

Baptist women were among the leaders in the Woman's Union Missionary Movement of 1860. In the spring of that year, Ellen Huntly Bullard Mason, wife of Dr. Francis Mason of Burma, took the long journey home expressly to present her plea in person to the American Baptist Missionary Union and the women of the churches. She held numerous conferences with the board of the Missionary Union and other boards, urging them to send out single women as teachers and Bible readers. But they were not yet ready to send "unprotected females" and the efforts in that direction were a failure. But the little group, fired with her enthusiasm, conceived the idea of a non-denominational society patterned after the English organization of 1834, enlisted missionary workers in New York, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia, and in 1861 incorporated the Woman's Union Missionary Society of America for Heathen Lands. Its platform was the employment of unmarried women to labor among the women of the Orient, all denominations being represented. Its motto was, "O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt." In courtesy to Mrs. Mason, Taungoo was the field chosen for the first missionaries, and during the first year four native Bible women were employed in Burma, India and China. [3]

The basis of the society was nondenominational, and ladies from six divisions of the church made up the initial membership. It proposed to send out only single women, and the converts to be gathered would unite with such churches as geography and fellowship made practicable. So, from the first, the society undertook to be a helper of many denominations, rather than to establish something in its own name. [1]

The original plan was to secure a hundred collectors, who would each be responsible for US$20 for five consecutive years. In 12 months, 100 collectors had pledged, and the subscriptions received amounted to more than $2,000. The society immediately began to issue a publication, which at first was called " Missionary Crumbs," but with the eighth issue was changed to "Missionary Link". It was a monthly, priced $0.50 per year. One of the original auxiliaries of the "Union" had formed as an independent society in Boston in 1860. Other auxiliaries sprung up, totaling 26 in 1891, and 178 Bands, which were found in 15 different U.S. states and in New Brunswick. A unique feature of this society was its "Invalids' Auxiliary," to which 91 members were added in 1888, and whose contributions for that year were $100. Up to 1886, the total receipts of the society were about a $1,000.00. They stood for 1890 at $60,026.88. [1]

The first missionary was sent out in November, 1861, Miss Marstou, to Burma. In July, 1863, Miss Brittan (Episcopalian) went to zenana work in Calcutta. At the end of four years, the society had two missionaries, seven Bible-women, and another serving in hospitals in Calcutta. [1] In 1890, their force had become 63 missionaries, of whom four were physicians. All these women were located in Calcutta, Allahabad, and Kanpur, India; Shanghai, China; and Yokohama, Japan. [1]

It became apparent that one society could not meet all the demands, and so in 1868 the Congregational women withdrew and organized by themselves, then the Presbyterian women in 1869 and 1870, and the Baptist women in 1871. [3]

India

Zenana missions was the strongest feature of this society's labors from the beginning. In Calcutta, it was known as "The American Doremus Zenana Mission". It included the superintendent (always one of the missionary women); 16 missionaries; 55 native teachers; zenana pupils, 1,000; schools, 50; suburban schools, in Kajpore, 12; and Entally, two. In Calcutta, there was also an orphanage, with superintendent, zenana teacher, Bible-class teacher, and 112 pupils. The mission had no school-houses in Calcutta, but its 50 schools were taught in rooms which were rented in the houses of Babus. There were 1,500 children in these schools, whose lessons were received behind the purdah. Christian literature for circulation was provided in the zenanas. [1]

The children of the orphanage, all girls, divided their time between study, work, and play. Their ages ranged from 2–18 years. The youngest did not attend school. Those above them were taught and trained for teaching in their vernacular —either Bengali or Hindustani— with a little English besides. The older girls constituted a higher department, and their work was done wholly in English, with one language of the country also. The most advanced of all were put into a normal training-class and study for the entrance examinations of the University of Calcutta. Several of these upper-class girls were suitable candidates for a medical course, and the superintendent hoped to see them trained as physicians. All these girls were also trained in the Bible. [1]

At Allahabad, there was a Superintendent, zenana missionary, 16 missionaries, six native assistants, 1,398 pupils, 1,000 in 47 schools, 398 pupils in 320 zenanas. [1]

At Cawnpur, there was a superintendent, zenana missionary, 13 missionaries, five native assistants, 968 pupils, 623 in 37 schools, 345 pupils in 184 zenanas. Among the schools is one for high-caste Hindus taught by a Pundita. It contained 38 girls, in 1889, who were learning Bible verses, catechism, and Scripture lessons. [1]

China

In Shanghai, there was a medical missionary, medical assistant, missionary teacher, five Chinese teachers, and five hospital helpers. [1]

The Margaret Williamson Hospital was a stone building. Patients came 15 miles (24 km) by boat or wheelbarrow to the dispensary, or walked there from 5–10 miles (8.0–16.1 km) on their bound feet. It was open every day except Sundays. Every new patient was registered; and sufficient medicine was given for five or more days. The doctor saw on average 160 in a day, although once, there were 196; and her assistant, the nurse, put up 250 prescriptions in one day. All patients in the hospital were expected, if possible, to pay for their rice. Many could not afford even this. Private patients were also accepted. Work began at 8 A.m. with prayer, and a Bible-class met on Friday evening. The Bridgman Memorial Home contained 40 or more girls ages 5–16 years. [1]

Public examinations of the school opened with prayer and a hymn. The girls were not taught English. All were from poor homes, and were trained in sewing, mending, darning, and knitting. They were also taught to wash and iron, and to take turns in the kitchen where they learned cooking. There were several day-schools in the city, numbering 70 or more scholars, who joined the girls from the Home in Sunday-school, and with women also, brought the attendance up to 150-180. The children were drilled in behavior and the Scriptures. [1]

Japan

In Yokohama, the staff included the superintendent, missionary teacher and evangelist, superintendent of Children's Home, two missionary teachers, physician, six Japanese teachers, six Japanese medical assistants. 21 Bible-women, 140 scholars, 200 in Sunday-school. Seven girls were graduated from the school in the English course in June, 1888. In all, 35 girls had passed the English department up to 1889, some of whom were teaching in mission schools, and others were married to evangelists and pastors. There was a corps of 21 Bible-women, three of them self-supporting. None of them understood English. [1] . Currently there is a private girls' secondary education school taking in women aged 12 to 18 called Yokohama Kyoritsu Gakuen in Yokohama, Japan. Yokohama Kyoritsu's English name is Doremus School, as it was established by Mary P Brine, Louise H Pearson (the school's first headmistress), and Julia N Crosby (school's second headmistress), three women associated with The Women's Union Missionary Society of American for Heathen Lands.


Notable people

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adoniram Judson</span> American missionary (1788–1850)

Adoniram Judson was an American Congregationalist and later Particular Baptist missionary, who worked in Burma for almost forty years. At the age of 25, Judson was sent from North America to preach in Burma. His mission and work with Luther Rice led to the formation of the first Baptist association in America to support missionaries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Carey (missionary)</span> English Baptist missionary and a Particular Baptist minister

William Carey was an English Christian missionary, Particular Baptist minister, translator, social reformer and cultural anthropologist who founded the Serampore College and the Serampore University, the first degree-awarding university in India.

The American Baptist Home Mission Society is a Christian missionary society. Its main predecessor the Home Mission Society was established in New York City in 1832 to operate in the American frontier, with the stated mission "to preach the Gospel, establish churches and give support and ministry to the unchurched and destitute." In the 19th century, the Society was related to the Triennial Convention of Baptists. Today it is part of that Convention's successor, the American Baptist Churches, USA, and is the successor by merger of several 19th century Baptist organizations related to missions and education, including publications (1824), women (1877), and education (1888)

Protestants in India are a minority and a sub-section of Christians in India and also to a certain extent the Christians in Pakistan before the Partition of India, that adhere to some or all of the doctrines of Protestantism. Protestants in India are a small minority in a predominantly Hindu majority country, but form majorities in the north-eastern states of Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland and significant minorities in Konkan division, Bengal, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, with various communities in east coast and northern states. Protestants today trace their heritage back to the Protestant reformation of the 16th century. There are an estimated 20 million Protestants and 16 million Pentecostals in India.

Hana Catherine Mullens (1826–1861) was a European Christian missionary, educator, translator and writer. She was a leader of zenana missions, setting up schools for girls and writing what is arguably the first novel in Bengali. She spent most of her life in Calcutta, then the capital of British India, and was fluent in the Bengali language.

The International Service Fellowship, more commonly known as Interserve, is an interdenominational Protestant Christian charity which was founded in London in 1852. For many years it was known as the Zenana Bible and Medical Missionary Society and it was run entirely by women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Platt Doremus</span>

Sarah Platt Doremus was a 19th-century American philanthropist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zenana missions</span> Programmes in British India established with the goal of converting women to Christianity

The zenana missions were outreach programmes established in British India with the aim of converting women to Christianity. From the mid 19th century, they sent female missionaries into the homes of Indian women, including the private areas of houses - known as zenana - that male visitors were not allowed to see. Gradually these missions expanded from purely evangelical work to providing medical and education services. Hospitals and schools established by these missions are still active, making the zenana missions an important part of the history of Christianity in India.

Ellen Huntly Bullard Mason was an American Baptist foreign missionary and writer. The founder of the Woman's Union Missionary Society of America for Heathen Lands, she was the first woman in the US to sign an agreement to institute a union effort by women, independent of denominational control, to bring the Gospel to the zenanas of India.

John Fordyce (1819–1902) was a Christian missionary, evangelical minister and administrator who launched the female education initiative in India known as the Zenana Missions. He has been credited with introducing the rickshaw to India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Esther Pritchard</span> American minister and editor

Esther Pritchard was a 19th-century American minister and editor. Pritchard was the daughter of a minister of the Society of Friends. She was one of the leading preachers of the Friends' Society in the United States, and was the Woman's Christian Temperance Union's Superintendent of the Department of Systematic Giving. Pritchard edited for some years the Friend's Missionary Advocate, and was a teacher in the Chicago Training School for Missions. Her husband's removal from Chicago to the pastorate of the Friends church, Kokomo, Indiana, severed her connection with the school and left her free to push the special work of her department. Seventeen State Unions subsequently adopted the department, while outside the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, ten Woman's Missionary Boards were influenced to create a similar agency. She died in 1900.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Khanto Bala Rai</span> Indian educator

Khanto Bala Rai was a Bengali Christian educator, head of the Mission Girls' High School in Midnapore beginning in 1923.

Martha Violet Ball was a 19th-century American educator, philanthropist, activist, writer, and editor. Ball and her sister, Lucy, undertook the work of opening a school for young African American girls in the West End of Boston. In the same year, 1833, she assisted in the organization of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, of which she and Lucy held leadership roles. Her work among unfortunate women and girls led to the formation of the New England Female Moral Reform Society, with which she was from its beginning connected as Secretary and Manager. For twenty-five years, she was joint-editor of its organ, the Home Guardian, and was also affiliated in its department, "The Children's Fireside". She was a constituent member of the Ladies' Baptist Bethel Society, first as its Secretary and for thirty years its President. Ball was the first President of the Woman's Union Missionary Society of America for Heathen Lands, and a charter member of the New England Woman's Press Association. She was the author of several small, popular books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harriette G. Brittan</span> British-born American missionary

Harriette G. Brittan was a pioneer British-born American missionary to Liberia, India and Japan. Finding herself unable to live in Africa because of repeated attacks of tropical fever, she was compelled to return to the United States. A year or two later, she went to India where she labored for twenty years. In 1880, she came to Japan and founded Brittan Girls’ School, later known as Yokohama Eiwa Gakuin. At the age of sixty-three, she gave up regular mission work and for a number of years, conducted a boarding house. When her health started to fail, she returned to the U.S. and died one day after reaching San Francisco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Reed (missionary)</span> American Christian missionary

Mary Reed (1854–1943) was an American Christian missionary to India. For the first ten years of her career, she worked as a school teacher in her home state of Ohio. In 1884, she went to India as a missionary of the Cincinnati Branch of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and entered upon zenana missions work at Cawnpore. In 1890, she became conscious of a strange physical disability, and thinking that her health was failing, returned to the U.S. on a furlough. While recovering in Cincinnati came the dread suspicion and subsequent discovery that the malady was leprosy. At first, she was overwhelmed with the realization, but she quickly decided to give her life to work among the lepers in India, and her thoughts turned to Pithoragarh, among the foothills of the Himalayas, at the base of Chandag Heights, where a group of lepers lived in whom she had already become interested. Her suspicions as to the nature of her disease were confirmed by every specialist she consulted. She kept the diagnosis a secret, however, from her family, with the exception of one sister, and returned to India in 1891. Proceeding to Pithoragarh, Reed informed her family and friends by letter of her purpose, and her reason for choosing this service. Thereafter, she conducted her important work at Chandag, and built up an institution which in many respects was a model of order and well-arranged facilities. Reed continued to work among the lepers of India until her death in 1943. She was a recipient of the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal.

Women's missionary societies include a diverse set of scopes, including medical, educational, and religious. Societies provide services in-country and in foreign lands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marilla Baker Ingalls</span>

Marilla Baker Ingalls was an American Baptist Missionary Union missionary and writer. After marrying the widower, Rev. Lovell Ingalls, they sailed for Burma in 1851. Widowed in 1856, she continued working as a missionary in Burma till her death there in 1902. Inglls had great influence among the Buddhist priests in spreading the word of Christianity. She established Bible societies, distributing tracts in their own language to the French, English, Burmese, Shans, Hindus and Karens. She opened a library for the benefit of the employees of the railway, and established branch libraries on these lines. Her work was most valuable among the men who went out into these countries to work for the syndicates building railroads, and also among the local workers. The various governments represented appreciated her work, and often assisted her.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society</span>

The Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society was an American Christian women's missionary organization. Harriet E. Giles and Sophia B. Packard co-founded, in 1877, the Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society, supporting missionary women bringing education to the African-American and Native American communities.

References

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.