“Disordered” Democracies: Gender Conflict and New York Baptist Women, 1791–1830

In spite of numerous excellent monographs written in recent years, the status of women in early national Baptist churches in the United States remains a subject of dispute. While some historians paint a gloomy picture of female marginalization, others contend that women had a surprising amount of influence over congregational matters. Taken at face value, current research suggests that early national Baptist women may have been the most oppressed in New England, had the most power in Georgia, and held varying degrees of influence in between. Such a conclusion is counter-intuitive and suggests the need for improved methodology.

This article proposes a more rigorous methodology that will help researchers investigate local conditions more precisely and also make it possible to draw comparisons among Baptist congregations over time and from region to region. The essay then implements the proposed methodology in its examination of the records of twenty-six frontier New York congregations. It argues that Baptist women in western New York played important roles in many local congregations between 1791 and 1822, only to have their contributions diminished between 1823 and 1830. This shift in the Baptist approach to female congregational participation was prompted by cultural change, by socioeconomic development, and, in large part, by male fears of ecclesiastical disorder. The article concludes with a discussion of how the proposed methodology could advance future research regarding female Baptist agency in the antebellum period.