Category: Women in Religion
Famous Wives, Women in Religion

Eunice White Beecher

• Maggie

Wife of the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher Eunice White Beecher was also author of a novel, From Dawn to Daylight, and several books about housekeeping. Her husband, Henry Ward Beecher of the illustrious Beecher family, became one of the most famous men in the United States during the 19th century. Early Years Eunice White Bullard was born August 26, 1812 in West Sutton, Massachusetts, the daughter of Lucy White Bullard and Dr. Artemas Bullard. Eunice was educated in Hadley, Massachusetts. In the meantime, Henry Ward Beecher, almost a year younger than Eunice, had a stammer and was considered one of the less promising of the brilliant Beecher children. THIS MY 500th POST !
Women in Education, Women in Religion

Charlotte Digges Moon

• Maggie

Southern Baptist Missionary to China Charlotte Digges “Lottie” Moon (1840–1912) was a Southern Baptist missionary to China with the Foreign Mission Board who spent nearly forty years living and working there. As a teacher and evangelist, she made many trips into China’s interior to share the gospel with women and girls. Image: Charlotte Digges “Lottie” Moon (1840–1912) Early Years Charlotte Digges Moon was born December 12, 1840 to affluent parents who were staunch Baptists, Anna Maria Barclay and Edward Harris Moon. She was fourth in a family of five girls and two boys. She grew up on her family’s 1,500-acre tobacco plantation called Viewmont, near Scottsville, Virginia. When Moon was thirteen, her father died in a riverboat accident.
Activists, Civil War Women, Women in Religion

Olympia Brown

• Maggie

Suffragist and the First Woman Minister in the United States Olympia Brown was a suffragist, the first woman to graduate from a theological school, and the first woman minister in the United States.* In 1863, the Universalist Church ordained Brown, the first woman ordained by that denomination. She was also one of the first generation suffragists who survived long enough to vote after the Nineteenth Amendment was passed in 1920. Image: Olympia Brown in 1919 *Antoinette Brown Blackwell is often considered the first American woman minister (1853). She was ordained by a Congregationalist church in Butler, New York, but the Congregationalist denomination did not approve her ordination. Olympia Brown was fully ordained by the church; Blackwell was not. Early Years…

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Abolitionists, African Americans, Humanitarians, Slavery in America, Women in Religion

Sojourner Truth

• Maggie

Sojourner Truth was an African American abolitionist and women’s rights activist who escaped from slavery in New York in 1826. She began as an itinerant preacher and became a nationally known advocate for equality and justice, sponsoring a variety of social reforms, including women’s property rights, universal suffrage and prison reform. She was born Isabella Baumfree in 1797 on the estate of Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh in Swartekill, a Dutch settlement in upstate New York. She was one of 13 children born to Elizabeth and James Baumfree, who were slaves on the Hardenbergh plantation. Both the Baumfrees and the Hardenberghs spoke Dutch in their daily lives. After the colonel’s death, ownership of the Baumfrees passed to his son Charles.
Civil War Women, Famous Firsts, Women in Religion

Antoinette Brown Blackwell

• Maggie

First Ordained Woman Minister and Social Reformer Antoinette Brown Blackwell (1825–1921), was the first woman to be ordained as a minister in the United States. She was also a well-versed public speaker on the social reform issues of her time, and used her religious faith in her efforts to expand women’s rights. Always ahead of her time, she wrote prolifically on religion and science, constructing a theoretical foundation for sexual equality. Early Years Antoinette Louisa Brown was born in Henrietta, New York on May 20, 1825, the daughter of Joseph and Abby Morse Brown. From childhood on she preferred writing and men’s farm chores to housework. Brown’s parents were very religious and, during her childhood, they were inspired by the…

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Civil War Women, Famous Firsts, Women in Religion

Mary Baker Eddy

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First Woman to Found a Major Religion in the United States Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910) was an influential American author, teacher and religious leader, noted for her groundbreaking ideas about spirituality and health, which she named Christian Science. She articulated those ideas in her major work, Science and Health (1875). Four years later she founded the Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, which today has branch churches and societies around the world. Early Years Mary Morse Baker was born on July 16, 1821 in Bow, New Hampshire, the youngest of six children of Abigail and Mark Baker. Mary’s formal education was interrupted by periods of sickness. When not in school, she read and studied extensively at home, writing prose…

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African Americans, Women in Religion

Rebecca Jackson

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Founder of a Black Shaker Community Little is known of the early life of Rebecca Cox Jackson (1795-1871), a free black woman who became an elder in the Shaker religion, which was founded by Mother Ann Lee just before the Revolutionary War. At age 35 Jackson underwent a religious conversion during a thunderstorm, after which she became an itinerant preacher and established a black Shaker community in Philadelphia in 1859. There are no known images of Rebecca Cox Jackson. Image: African American Church in Philadelphia by Pavel Petrovich Svinin, 1815 Rebecca Cox was born on February 15, 1795 to a free family in Hornstown, Pennsylvania and lived until the age of three or four with her grandmother, who died when…

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Philanthropists, Women in Education, Women in Religion

Isabella Graham

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Scottish-American Educator and Philanthropist Isabella Marshall Graham (1742-1814) was a Scottish-born charity worker, educator and philanthropist who founded one of the earliest relief societies in the United States. She was one of the leading figures in the movement to provide assistance to the poor who were coming into American cities in search of work in the early days of the industrial revolution. Born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, on July 29, 1742, Isabella Marshall grew up on an estate at Eldersley near Paisley. An inheritance from her grandfather enabled her to attend boarding school for seven years, where she received an excellent education. At 17, she became a member of the Church of Scotland under the ministry of Dr. John Witherspoon, later…

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Women in Education, Women in Religion

Elizabeth Ann Seton

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Educator and Founder of the Sisters of Charity Elizabeth Seton (1774–1821) was the first native born American to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church (September 14, 1975). She established the first Catholic school in the nation at Emmitsburg, Maryland, where she founded the first American congregation of Religious Sisters, the Sisters of Charity. Her enduring legacy now includes six religious communities with more than 5,000 members, hundreds of schools, social service centers and hospitals throughout America and around the world. Image: Monument in St. Raymond’s Cemetery Bronx, New York Childhood and Early Years Elizabeth Ann Bayley was born on August 28, 1774, the second child of a socially prominent couple, Dr. Richard Bayley and Catherine Charlton of New York…

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First Women, Poets and Writers, Women in Religion

Jarena Lee

• Maggie

First Woman Preacher in the AME Church Jarena Lee was a 19th century African American woman who left behind an eloquent account of her religious experiences, first published as The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee in 1836 and later revised and expanded as Religious Experience and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee in 1849. She was also the first woman authorized to preach by Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Childhood Jarena Lee was born on February 11, 1783 in Cape May, New Jersey to free but poor black parents. Because of the economic circumstances of her family, Lee was sent off to work as a live-in servant when she was just seven, “at the distance…

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