Emma Brown Malone: A Mother of Feminism?

Emma Brown Malone: A Mother of Feminism? John W. Oliver* Introduction One consequence of the rise of Evangelical Quakerism in the Americas in the later 19th and early 20th centuries was a rebirth of evangelism. Early English Quakers went as "Messengers of Truth" to convert Britain, the colonies, and foreign lands. Evangelical Friends, especially in Ohio, Indiana , North Carolina, Kansas, Iowa, California and Oregon, shared a similar passion for missions, while assuming less pretentious labels. They were merely "Christian workers" or "soul-winners." Evangelicals spread their brand of Quakerism in urban slums, as well as in Africa, Asia, Central and South America. While sometimes opposed by competing factions within the Society of Friends, these Bibliocentric revivalistic Friends were positioning themselves, through outreach or evangelism, to become the largest form of Quakerism, at least outside the British Isles. Many "workers" became recorded ministers. Many Quaker ministers, with like-minded Evangelicals, were schooled at Bible Colleges orTraining Schools. For Evangelical Friends, the most successful Bible College was the Christian Workers Training School in Cleveland, which was cofounded in 1892 by J[ohn] Walter and Emma Brown Malone. This article identifies four seminal influences on Emma Brown Malone, explains theplace ofBible Colleges inequipping women for ministry, gives attention to Emma's work as an educator of women and looks at what she and these early Evangelical Friends had to do with gender issues, Finally, it responds to the claim of Margaret Hope Bacon that Mrs. Malone was a "mother of feminism"1 with "no" and "yes." Influences Four influences—Quaker traditions in regard to women in ministry, later 19th century Holiness, revivalistic Evangelicalism of Dwight L. Moody, Cleveland's Evangelical Quakers—helped shape the religion of Emma Brown Malone. Together, these four factors also help to explain the prominence of women in early Evangelical Quakerism. QUAKERISM: To borrow Thomas Hamm's word, Quakerism in 19th century Americaunderwenta"transformation." Friends splitovertheology. Cultural assimilation accelerated as many, at least in the Midwest, left guarded Quaker communities to live in cities. In short order, many dis- *John W. Oliver is currently working on abiography ofWalter andEmma Malone. He is also Clerk-convenerofthe 1 3th biennial Conference ofQuaker Historians and Archivists, which meets at Earlham College June 23-25, 2000. Emma Brown Malone carded plain dress, plain speech, silent meetings, etc., and their children attended public schools. Radical change also took place in Emma's family. In spite of her unbroken Quaker ancestry—which reached back eight generations to the first decade of English Friends,2 and relatives (Brown, Haight, Widdifield, Randall, Wilson, Phinney) who had been loyal Friends in Canada3—Emma came from a theologically mixed, if not a theologically indifferent, home. Charles Brown, Emma's father, had been raised a Hicksite. Margaret Haight, Emma's mother, was from an Orthodox Quaker home. Emma grew to maturity in an Irish Catholic neighborhood in a district once known as Ohio City, where she was valedictorian at West High School, which stood west of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland.4 If it is not necessary to review Quaker support for women ministers for readers of Quaker History,5 it is noteworthy that at least three of Emma's ancestors in the previous four generations had been ministers, and two of these ministers (Sara Haight and Martha Wilson Widdifield) were women.6 In short, even with the changes in the Friends, and in her own family, the ancient practice of women in ministry would remain firmly entrenched in Emma Brown Malone. HOLINESS: In the 1 9th century, faith in instant and complete holiness grew out of Wesley's doctrine of "Christian perfection"7 and entered the Society of Friends. Sometimes dated from Phoebe Palmer's "day of days" in 1837, this "second blessing" of "sinless perfection" promised to fill believers with "perfect love" and usher them into "a state in which [the sanctified] no longer had any desire or propensity to sin."8 Holiness promoted gender equality, for moral perfection was open to all regardless ofrace, class, education or gender. Palmer encouraged believers to address one another in familial terms: "brother," "sister." She cited the "naked Word of God" as her authority to chastise those who think "they are...