Joanna B. Gillespie, Ph.D.
Uncovered Voices
Women’s ‘Pious Memoirs’ and Other Mostly Ignored Voices
from the Episcopal Church in the 18th & 19th cc
A word about the phrase ‘pious memoirs’: Until the 19th and 20th centuries, womens’ private thoughts, prayers, and struggles were deemed purely personal and unworthy of preserving in print, unless they were what the male publishing world considered “important”: religious issues, philosophy, moral grapplings. In other words, ordinary women without artistic or literary ambitions merited publishing only if they sounded like theologians (men)—writing “serious” thoughts about God, heaven and hell. Daily life issues were the stuff of personal correspondence, not published books.
However antiquated their language may seem, these individual stories of personal religious history once again bring individual women to life. Many of their original memoirs were written by authors who knew these subjects well—often their clergyman or a relative—and chose to memorialize them in print. In these essays, I pursued a double agenda: uncovering what the original authors of memoirs valued in their times, and uncovering these histories as “new” voices. With Mary Sudman Donovan, I helped found the Episcopal Women’s History Project in 1980, shining the same kind of spotlight on “women in the pew” from the evolving American religious scene. The new issues discussed were women’s ordination and contemporary liturgical practices. These voices were rarely heard or preserved before the 1960s.
ARTICLES: 18th, 19th, & 20th c Episcopal Women’s Voices
The list is not exhaustive. If the article is available online, the link is given and opens a new window. Access may require login at the article’s hosting site or purchase from that individual publisher.
The 1970s change of attitude in college womens' expectation toward careers before post-college coupling.
The late 19th-20th c. social and cultural symbolism in newspaper photographs of a public official with his wife holding the Bible for his oath of office.
The late 19th-20th c. social and cultural symbolism in newspaper photographs of a public official with his wife holding the Bible for his oath of office.
The 18th c social and religious function of “beautiful-death memoirs” even of a six-year-old child--a glimpse of family values.
A didactic ‘story’ of an 18th c. English Christian ‘school’ to train working girls as future housemaids—instruction in vivid social-class and behavioral expectations.
Decoding the multiple theological and cultural meanings of the concept of "Providence" shaping 18th c. American girls and women.
Praise for an 18th c American woman's dedication to and of embodying evangelical religious ideals in her desire for attention.
Defending an unmarried early-19thc. woman who embarked on foreign missionary work.
The mental and spiritual world of a literate woman schooled in pious English writings that aimed to cope with disappointments and the power of evil through the benevolent, all-enveloping concept of Providence.
In late 1700s England, and quickly transplanted to the Protestant American colonies, evangelical Christian Bible classes kept street urchins off the streets and incidentally taught literacy along with Anglo models of self improvement, a function that helped the evolution of public education.
An essay derived from the diary-recorded nervous breakdown and recovery of a strong, educated, deeply religious wife and mother in post-Revolutionary War Charleston SC (today probably labeled a post-partum depression) — relieved by immersion in a religious ‘how-to’ book On Keeping The Heart by John Flavel (London, 1763).
A remarkable study of an unlikely radical ‘social gospel’ Southern lady from impeccable Episcopal “first-family-of-Virginia” roots, whose adult career involved troubleshooting for the labor union struggling to organize the Southern states.
Memorializing as ‘saintly piety’ an 18th c. English girl’s extreme self-limitation, today called dyslexia.
Correspondence between a terminally-ill Charleston, SC mother and her eldest son and heir at Princeton College, attempting long-distance maternal control with appeals to the new-nation’s patriotism and family heritage.
The formation of an independent “third order” prayer association by New England upper-class daughters in Victorian-era American Protestant Episcopal culture, spiritual defiance of their social-class strictures by vowing themselves to intercessory prayer and issues of social justice.
A compact historical autobiography delineating the influential currents of English Enlightenment thought and culture in a post-Revolutionary War Charleston SC woman, a well-educated and -traveled daughter of a civic leader, slave-importer father, and wife, mother of nine children and helpmeet of a physician husband, Dr. David Ramsay, an early historian and patriot.
In an anthology about the twentieth-century Episcopal women, this article sums the birth and evolution of the Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross, from 1884 through today. Its charism is an intense prayer life, an avowed daily spiritual discipline, and addressing everyday problems in nearby slums. The founders, Emily M. Morgan and Vida D. Scudder, modeled radical hospitality and addressed social inequities, grounded in a dedicated community.
ARTICLES: Mostly Ignored Voices
Access to these three articles is granted for personal and educational use only.
Author’s Note: This paper focuses on the religious and spiritual influence of Vida Dutton Scudder, 1861-1954. A professor of early modern literature at Wellesley College for forty years who is being added to the roster of ‘everyday saints’ in the Episcopal calendar Lesser Feasts and Fasts. She is known more today for her early 20th c political activism. Widely-published author and social-justice activist, retreat leader and college professor, her life and works recall an era known as Social Christianity, opening American churches to social problems in their backyards. Also called the “Social Gospel” era.
Author’s Note: I first heard this immigrant Episcopal congregation’s WWII internment story in a sermon on the parable of the good Samaritan. Exploring the memories of a few elderly women parishioners who lived it was eye-opening. Writing their story was important because so little history about “ethnic” (non-white) immigrant Episcopalians has been recovered or studied in the larger narrative of church history.
Author’s Note: This research was part of a survey of mid-20th c. Episcopal education materials for a project of the Eli Lilly Foundation, Indianapolis IN. From the late 19th c., an emphasis on “character” and the values that build character were an instructional component of the texts influencing Episcopal Sunday School culture. These came to be synonomous with the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant ideal as an interpretation of the scriptural message to the young.
BOOKS: Women’s Voices In-Depth
Last revised Feb 22, 2010 • All books available on Amazon
The Vocation of Companionship
(Infinity Press, 2006)
... a mid-20th c. study of the Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross (1884– ), a “third order” Episcopal women’s prayer association vowed to intercessory prayer, a daily prayer discipline, and work for social justice in the larger world. Their retreat house, built in 1914 in Byfield, MA, Adelynrood, offers retreats, study conferences, and individual sojourns.
The innovative element in late 19th c. US was establishing their own religious worship and rituals, inviting a priest only to celebrate the eucharist. They organized study groups and conferences, inviting experts on legislation they supported back in their own parishes. Their major citizenly intercession and work for social justice was the unionization of exploited workers and abolishing child labor, plus the civil rights movement in the 1950s. The book ends with the 1954 death of co-founder (with Emily Malbone Morgan), Vida Dutton Scudder. Today SCHC has expanded to nearly 800 Companions.
The Life and Times of Martha Laurens Ramsay 1787-1811
(University of South Carolina Press, 2001)
... drawn from the religious diary (posthumously published) and personal letters of Martha—an adolescent during the Revolutionary War, her father a British prisoner in the Tower of London. She married Dr. David Ramsay at age twenty-five and bore him eleven children, (nine surviving). She recorded the trials and joys of a wife, mother, active Christian and involved citizen, even assisting her husband with his scientific papers, in turbulent post-War Charleston, SC. She ran a family school and tutored David Jr. in Greek, for Princeton College. Primarily, however it was her secret conversation with God about the state of her soul. After she died in 1811 after giving birth to her youngest daughter, Dr. Ramsay published a memoir from her private writings, his intention being to honor her in a pious memoir as an exemplar of “the new American Woman.”
Women Speak–of God, Congregations, and Change
(Trinity Press, 1995)
A survey of contemporary Episcopal women reflecting on the 1960s innovations in Episcopal worship and liturgy, new roles for laywomen in congregational life, and the major change of ordaining women to the priesthood—from interviews with anonymous “women in the pew” and from four parts of the US. They reflect on the experience of finally being allowed to be lay readers, chalice bearers, ushers, acolytes, and hold elective offices on parish vestries.