Much of what has been written about women in American religious history has featured those relatively few who were evangelists, teachers, and missionaries. The reasons for this emphasis are obvious. Most of this historiography came about as a result of various feminist impulses in America. Those who were looking for religious heroines found them in those women who aspired to the pulpit, or to at least to some greater public role in the life of the church.[1] Essentially, historians of women and religion have imitated an older, traditional way, one that emphasized leading men, great events, and turning points.
Meanwhile, religious historians who come from conservative and traditional circles have typically ignored the stories of female preachers from the past. This has left them with not as much to say about women, at least not much that was obvious.[2] Consequently, only some writers have told us only some of the stories of those women who represent just a tiny fraction of the devout in American history.
A better understanding of the significance of women in American religious history will require an approach that more closely examines the lives that almost all of them lived, the sorts of contributions they typically made. Along this line, one unexplored avenue is the role women have played in the establishment of new congregations. An overview of Stone-Campbell church planting in Indian Territory from 1888 until Oklahoma statehood in 1907 reveals that several new congregations began with the efforts of women. For example, the church at Ardmore in present-day Carter County was formed in 1888 when "Mrs. Sophia Simpson, the Cook sisters, and Mr. and Mrs. R. W. Campbell" began meeting each Sunday to study the Bible and observe the Lord's Supper.[3] A congregation at Silver City, now a ghost town in present-day Grady County, began in 1889 when Aunie Erwin and new arrival Meta Chestnutt "went to work in earnest, teaching the Bible every Lord's Day." In 1890, "when the Rock Island Railroad came through," the little congregation along with the rest of the town moved about seven miles west to be near the new tracks. This was the beginning of present-day Minco, Oklahoma. There, under the leadership of Chestnutt, who had come to Indian Territory in order to teach school, the church continued to "meet regularly each Lord's Day to study and teach the Word, break bread and contribute of our means to the Lord." By 1895, the church had grown "from two to some fifty or sixty."[4] About eighteen miles to the south of Minco, at Chickasha, a congregation began around 1892 sometime after the arrival of Mrs. Lillian Bohart Welsh, a staunch Disciple who sought out like-minded believers.[5] The Christian Church at McAlester, Oklahoma, was formed in 1893 after "Mrs. W. S. Ambrose and Mrs. Hammond Holler," decided to raise the money they needed in order to bring evangelist J. Harry Barber from Paris, Texas, just south of the Red River, to conduct a revival meeting.[6] A congregation began at Wagoner around 1895, when "Mrs. J. R. Thompson took the first step . . . by organizing a Sunday School in her home." Soon, Mrs. Thompson had twenty students. The Christian Church was organized sometime later when a preacher from Fort Worth, Texas, conducted a series of evangelistic meetings there.[7] A Stone-Campbell congregation began at Poteau in 1900 when a Mrs. McKenna, described as "a loyal Disciple," arranged for a church facility to be built there. The small congregation was not able to pay the mortgage and eventually sold its building to the Episcopal Church. Nevertheless, when evangelist W. S. Deartherage visited Poteau in 1916, he discovered a small group of Disciples. They formed the nucleus of what emerged as a permanent congregation.[8]
What these stories begin to reveal is that for every woman in Stone-Campbell history who preached to a mixed audience there were a thousand or more who established congregations, taught Bible classes, supported preachers and missionaries, and, above all, nurtured the next generation of believers.
Notes
[1] In Stone-Campbell historiography, two good examples are C. Leonard Allen, Distant Voices: Discovering a Forgotten Past for a Changing Church (Abilene, TX: Abilene Christian University Press, 1993), esp. ch. 4, "Your Daughters Shall Prophesy,." See also ch. 17, "The New Woman"; and Bonnie Miller, "Restoration Women Who Responded to the Spirit Before 1900," Leaven 16, no. 1 (2008), accessed February 20, 2021, https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol16/iss1/5.
[2] Again, in Stone-Campbell historiography, a good example is the website titled The Restoration Movement.com. The site is managed by Scott Harp, a conservative preacher among the Churches of Christ. Although it contains a large number of biographical sketches of male leaders, its page titled "Great Women Of The Restoration Movement" includes a total of six links to biographies of female leaders, accessed February 20, 2021, https://www.therestorationmovement.com/women.htm.
[3] Stephen J. England, Oklahoma Christians: A History of Christian Churches and of the start of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Oklahoma (St. Louis, MO: Bethany Press, 1975), 55.
[4] Meta Chestnutt, "Minco, Ind. Ter.," The American Home Missionary 1 (April 1895), 62. See also England, Oklahoma Christians, 56-57. For a brief history of Silver City, see John W. Morris, Ghost Towns of Oklahoma (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978), 173-74.
[5] England, Oklahoma Christians, 58.
[6] Ibid., 59. Apparently, the next year, Barber made a follow up visit to McAlester. "Local Mention," South McAlester Capital July 26, 1894, includes the following note: "Rev. J. Harry Barber closed an interesting meeting here last week. He is an entertaining preacher."
[7] England, Oklahoma Christians, 60.
[8] Ibid., 63-64.
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