Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Jessie Ackerman, 'The Original World Citizen': Temperance Leader, Suffrage Pioneer, Feminist, Humanitarian., Jenny Rushing

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Jessie Ackerman was the second world missionary for the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Her fascinating life sheds light on the most important issues facing women during this time period. Most WCTU women have been dismissed by twentieth century scholars as being religiously fanatical and conservative. They have been overshadowed by suffragists and other women that we consider more radical by today’s standards. Only in recent years have some feminist historians begun to reexamine the contributions WCTU women made to the suffrage movement and to feminism.

The research for this thesis relies heavily on primary sources including Ackerman’s personal papers found …

My Mother Could Send Up The Most Powerful Prayer: The Role Of African American Slave Women In Evangelical Christianity, Sherry L. Abbott

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Evangelical Christianity swept through the South during the nineteenth century, permeating and redefining all aspects of social and cultural life. The traditional way to study this subject is through the history of the conversion of white women and African Americans, the power and expansion of certain denominations, and slaves' widespread use of religion as resistance. Yet something is missing within this history of Southern evangelical religion -the unique experience of African American women. This thesis addresses their experience, indicating that slave women found creative ways to assert their authority within immediate families and in their community. The study specifically focuses …