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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 August 2022
The American Social Gospel and the role of women in American religion recently have emerged as significant concerns for American religious historians, after a period of relative neglect. In 1976 Ronald C. White, Jr. and C. Howard Hopkins called for a fresh, more inclusive look at the Social Gospel, pointing to women as among the “neglected reforms and reformers” in Social Gospel study. Scholarship on women and religion has exploded in the last decade, focusing not only on important individuals and traditional religious images of women, but also on women's own ideas and activities. This article is presented with the hope that it not only may add to the study of the history of women in American religion, but also may contribute to a new understanding of the Social Gospel movement.
1. The Social Gospel: Religion and Reform in Changing America (Philadelphia, 1976), pp. 119-126. White and Hopkins focus on ihc work of Frances Wlllard, as does Carolyn DcSwartc Giflbrd, “For God and Home and Native Land; The W.C.TXJ.'s Image of Women in the Late 19th Century,” in Women in New Worlds: Historical Perspectives on the WesUyan Tradition, cd. Hilah F. Thomas and Rosemary Skinner (Ashvillc, 1981). In the same volume, Mary Agnes Dougherty, “The Social Gospel According to Phoebe; Methodist Deaconesses in the Metropolis, 1635-1918,” explores another aspect of the role of women tn the Social Gospel. John Patrick McDowell, The Social Gospel in the South: The Women's Home Mission Movement in the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1886-1939 (Baton Rouge, 1982), expands traditional views of the Social Gospel in terms of region as well as gender.
2. See Robert T. Handy, ed., The Social Gospel in America, 1870-7920 (New York, 1966), pp. 5-7.
3. Charles M. Sheldon, In His Steps (Chicago, 1899). White and Hopkins cite In His Steps as the only Social Gospel novel to reach “mass market circulation that is impressive even in the twentieth century,” p. 143; it is the Social Gospel novel most frequently cited in surveys of American religion; it is still in print.
4. C. Howard Hopkins, The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 7865-1918 (New Haven, 1940, 1967), pp. 140-148, provided a valuable start in searching out Social Gospel novels. Also useful were Walter Fuller Taylor, The Economic Novel in America (Chapel Hill, 1942) and Fay M. Blake, The Strike in the American Novel (Metuchen, N.J., 1972). Thirty-seven novels were considered for this article, with publication dates from 1871 to 1921. Of these, ten were written by women and twenty-seven by men, including eleven by Charles Sheldon, unarguably the most prolific Social Gospel novelist.
5. See Dorothy in Charles M. Sheldon, Malcom Kirk (Chicago, 1901).
6. See Irene Lawrence in Amanda M. Douglas, Hope Mills (Boston, 1880); Pinkie Randolph in Katharine Pearson Woods, Metzerolt, Shoemaker (New York, 1889); Lilian Kishu in Albion W. Tourgee, Murvale Eastman, Christian Socialist (New York, 1891); Luella Marsh in Charles M. Sheldon, The Reformer (Chicago, 1902); and Dorothy Girard Ferguson in Vida D. Scudder, A Listener in Babel (Boston, 1903).
7. Scudder, Listener in Babel, p. 13.
8. Ibid., pp. 265-293.
9. Florence Converse, The Children of Light (Boston, 1912), pp. 218-219.
10. Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000-1887 (Boston, 1888), p. 269. Bellamy's Utopian vision sees radical changes for women, such as female service in the industrial army, socialized housework, and financial independence, but maternity is still central. Women leave the industrial army to bear and raise children, and “the higher positions in the feminine army of industry are intrusted only to women who have been both wives and mothers, as they alone fully represent their sex,” p. 261. It is a fascinating male image of what would be ideal for women, trying to respond to contemporary criticisms but unable to discard a male perspective and a core of traditional roles for women, from separation and subordination of the female industrial army to the continued social practice of having ladies leave the table after dinner so men can indulge in serious talk.
11. Two important exceptions were women: Lucy Maynard Salmon, Domestic Service (New York, 1897; reprint ed., 1972); and Helen Campbell, Prisoners of Poverty: Women Wage-Earners, Their Trades, and Their Lives (Boston, 1887; reprint ed., 1970). See also Daniel E. Sutherland, Americans and Their Servants: Domestic Service in the United States from 1800 to 7920 (Baton Rouge, 1981).
12. Charles M. Sheldon, Born to Serve (Chicago, 1901), pp. 34-42; see Campbell, pp. 223-232.
13. Two partial exceptions must be made to this statement. Virginia Page does not marry in In His Steps, but she does in Sheldon's sequel, “Jesus is Here!” (New York, 1913,1914). Grace Andrews in The Reformer is a kind of Social Gospel heroine and single, but her advanced age (36) more than her own choice precludes her marriage to the hero, who is only 30.
14. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, The Silent Partner (Boston, 1871), pp. 260, 262.
15. Scudder, p. 315.