Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845
Margaret Meuse Clay, who barely escaped a public whipping in the 1760s for preaching without a license; "Old Elizabeth," an ex-slave who courageously traveled to the South to preach against slavery in the early nineteenth century; Harriet Livermore, who spoke in front of Congress four times between 1827 and 1844--these are just a few of the extraordinary women profiled in this, the first comprehensive history of female preaching in early America.

Drawing on a wide range of sources, Catherine Brekus examines the lives of more than a hundred female preachers--both white and African American--who crisscrossed the country between 1740 and 1845. Outspoken, visionary, and sometimes contentious, these women stepped into the pulpit long before twentieth-century battles over female ordination began. They were charismatic, popular preachers, who spoke to hundreds and even thousands of people at camp and revival meetings, and yet with but a few notable exceptions--such as Sojourner Truth--these women have essentially vanished from our history. Recovering their stories, Brekus shows, forces us to rethink many of our common assumptions about eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American culture.

1116949728
Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845
Margaret Meuse Clay, who barely escaped a public whipping in the 1760s for preaching without a license; "Old Elizabeth," an ex-slave who courageously traveled to the South to preach against slavery in the early nineteenth century; Harriet Livermore, who spoke in front of Congress four times between 1827 and 1844--these are just a few of the extraordinary women profiled in this, the first comprehensive history of female preaching in early America.

Drawing on a wide range of sources, Catherine Brekus examines the lives of more than a hundred female preachers--both white and African American--who crisscrossed the country between 1740 and 1845. Outspoken, visionary, and sometimes contentious, these women stepped into the pulpit long before twentieth-century battles over female ordination began. They were charismatic, popular preachers, who spoke to hundreds and even thousands of people at camp and revival meetings, and yet with but a few notable exceptions--such as Sojourner Truth--these women have essentially vanished from our history. Recovering their stories, Brekus shows, forces us to rethink many of our common assumptions about eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American culture.

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Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845

Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845

by Catherine A. Brekus
Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845

Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845

by Catherine A. Brekus

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Overview

Margaret Meuse Clay, who barely escaped a public whipping in the 1760s for preaching without a license; "Old Elizabeth," an ex-slave who courageously traveled to the South to preach against slavery in the early nineteenth century; Harriet Livermore, who spoke in front of Congress four times between 1827 and 1844--these are just a few of the extraordinary women profiled in this, the first comprehensive history of female preaching in early America.

Drawing on a wide range of sources, Catherine Brekus examines the lives of more than a hundred female preachers--both white and African American--who crisscrossed the country between 1740 and 1845. Outspoken, visionary, and sometimes contentious, these women stepped into the pulpit long before twentieth-century battles over female ordination began. They were charismatic, popular preachers, who spoke to hundreds and even thousands of people at camp and revival meetings, and yet with but a few notable exceptions--such as Sojourner Truth--these women have essentially vanished from our history. Recovering their stories, Brekus shows, forces us to rethink many of our common assumptions about eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American culture.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780807866542
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date: 11/09/2000
Series: Gender and American Culture
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 480
Sales rank: 380,130
File size: 9 MB

About the Author

Catherine A. Brekus teaches American religious history at the University of Chicago.

Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction. Recovering the History of Female Preaching in America
Part 1. There Is Neither Male nor Female
Chapter 1. Caught Up in God: Female Evangelism in the Eighteenth-Century Revivals
Chapter 2. Women in the Wilderness: Female Religious Leadership in the Age of Revolution
Part 2. Sisters in Christ, Mothers in Israel
Chapter 3. Female Laborers in the Harvest: Female Preaching in the Early Nineteenth Century
Chapter 4. The Last Shall Be First: Conversion and the Call to Preach
Chapter 5. Lift Up Thy Voice Like a Trumpet: Evangelical Women in the Pulpit
Chapter 6. God and Mammon: Female Peddlers of the Word
Part 3. Let Your Women Keep Silence
Chapter 7. Suffer Not a Woman to Teach: The Battle over Female Preaching
Chapter 8. Your Sons and Daughters Shall Prophesy: Female Preaching in the Millerite Movement
Epilogue. Write the Vision
Appendix. Female Preachers and Exhorters in America, 1740-1845
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgment
Index

Illustrations
The Capitol, Washington, D.C.
Harriet Livermore (1827)
Jonathan Edwards's notes on the Bathsheba Kingsley case (1743)
Philip Dawes, A Society of Patriotic Ladies (1775)
Portrait of Jemima Wilkinson by John L. D. Mathies (1816)
Methodist church in Unity, New Hampshire (1823)
A Methodist camp meeting held in Queen Anne's County, Maryland
Title page of Elleanor Warner Knight, A Narrative of the Christian Experience, Life and Adventures, Trials and Labours of Elleanor Knight, Written by Herself (1839)
Salome Lincoln
Abigail Roberts
Sarah Righter Major
Nancy Towle
Rebecca Miller's article on the "Duty of Females" (1841)
Laura Smith Haviland
An advertisement for Harriet Livermore's books (1832)
Jarena Lee
Sojourner Truth (1864)
A Methodist camp meeting (1820)
St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church, New York City (1859)
Lydia Sexton
A Millerite chart (1843)
The Millerites' Great Tent (1844)
Martha Spence Heywood

What People are Saying About This

Christine Leigh Heyrman

A worthy contribution to the history of religion and the history of women.

Nell Irvin Painter

Putting preaching women back in their place changes our understanding of the Awakenings and their meaning and empowerment of ordinary Americans.

From the Publisher

Excellent. . . . [This book] is the first to explore a forgotten world of female evangelists, both white and black, who tried to forge a tradition of female religious leadership in early America. . . . A study which should quickly become the standard work on its subject, radically altering our understanding of America's religious past and adding new dimensions to our view of women's lives.—Journal of American Studies

The absence of women preachers is truly a gap in the historical record that desperately needs to be filled. Putting preaching women back in their place changes our understanding of the Awakenings and their meaning for and empowerment of ordinary Americans.—Nell Irvin Painter, author of Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol

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