The Blessed Channel of Work: Gender, Power and the Union of the Women’s Foreign Missionary Societies in the Religious Society of Friends

Historians have portrayed American Quakers as one of the most progressive groups on the issue of women’s rights, citing their commitment to women’s ministry and their extensive involvement at Seneca Falls. Yet there is a need for additional research into gender roles in the denomination during the nineteenth century, which were decidedly less ideal than historians have imagined. This paper examines the internal denominational battle among Gurneyite Quakers over the consolidation of local women’s foreign mission societies into a single unified women’s foreign mission organization, and argues that women endeavored to construct this organization as a counterbalance to increasingly powerful male assertions of authority within the denomination.

The women who created the Women’s Foreign Missionary Union (WFMU) perceived Quakerism making a turn toward evangelicalism, and saw its increasing acceptance of mainstream Protestant practices, like having only male clergy, as eroding women’s authority. Holding leadership posts in the WFMU served as an outlet for a generation of women who in early periods would have been able to enter the ministry. These leaders conceived of the organization not as simply a missionary enterprise, but as a training ground for developing the talents of Quaker women before they could eventually achieve full equality with their male counterparts.