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The American Board's Single Missionary Women In American Indian Missions, 1810–1860, Lisa Jacqueline Travis

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Between 1810 and 1860 in American Indian missions, single missionary women comprised half of the female workforce in the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). Because the ABCFM operated as a business for converting and assimilating American Indians, it hired single women to perform vital and various tasks. Missionary couples requested that the ABCFM appoint single women to teach, perform domestic work, and care for mission children. Biographically, they resembled each other, but their reasons for becoming missionaries varied. Some single women became missionaries after lifelong dreams, but others because the suggestion was made. As workers, some were …