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Wolfe Dissertation 5-3-18 FINAL.pdf (7.47 MB)

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Constructing Modern Missionary Feminism: American Protestant Women’s Foreign Missionary Societies and the Rhetorical Positioning of Christian Women, 1901-1938

Wolfe, Marion A
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1040-4204
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1525440511790395

Abstract Details

2018, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, English.
From 1901-1938, the ecumenical Central Committee on the United Study of Foreign Missions (CCUSFM) published a series of annual textbooks intended for American Protestant women, members of local branches of women’s foreign missionary societies, to study and teach each other. The United Study texts constructed a version of women’s rights rhetoric that I refer to as modern missionary feminism. They positioned their readers as heirs to the history of Christianity, participants in contemporary political and social movements, and sisters to “heathen” women around the world who needed their help. In these ways, the United Study series created interrelated exigencies for American women, who were told that because of their privileged status as educated, modern, Western women, they were required to help other women and that the way to do so was through their support of Christian evangelism. To CCUSFM members and the authors they commissioned, the conversion of the world to Christianity, the spread of women’s rights, and modernization through Western cultural imperialism were inseparable. In particular, they believed that modern Christian women needed to act on behalf of missions in order to bring about the ideal, unified, egalitarian, and peaceful Christian utopia of the future. The contradictions inherent in their rhetoric (which utilized opposing ideas such as conservative/progressive, professional/familial, international/local, and unity/diversity) went largely uninterrogated; rather than viewing such binaries as either/or, their rhetorical positioning of modern missionary feminists allowed them to embrace multiple sides of various debates, revealing new ways in which rhetorical scholars can consider women’s and religious rhetorics.
Nan Johnson (Advisor)
James Fredal (Committee Member)
H. Lewis Ulman (Committee Member)
336 p.
Composition; Religious History; Rhetoric; Womens Studies
Women; Rhetoric; Religion; Protestant; Christianity; Missionary; Missions; Missionary Societies; Womens Foreign Missionary Societies; Feminist; Rhetorical practices; Progressive Era; Rhetorical positioning; Feminism; Feminist Rhetoric; Womens Rhetoric

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Wolfe, M. A. (2018). Constructing Modern Missionary Feminism: American Protestant Women’s Foreign Missionary Societies and the Rhetorical Positioning of Christian Women, 1901-1938 [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1525440511790395

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Wolfe, Marion. Constructing Modern Missionary Feminism: American Protestant Women’s Foreign Missionary Societies and the Rhetorical Positioning of Christian Women, 1901-1938. 2018. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1525440511790395.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Wolfe, Marion. "Constructing Modern Missionary Feminism: American Protestant Women’s Foreign Missionary Societies and the Rhetorical Positioning of Christian Women, 1901-1938." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1525440511790395

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1525440511790395
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