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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
“Friendship, Sweet Soother Of My Cares!”: Women, Religion, And Power In The Diary Of Sarah Connell Ayer, Shannon M. Risk
“Friendship, Sweet Soother Of My Cares!”: Women, Religion, And Power In The Diary Of Sarah Connell Ayer, Shannon M. Risk
Maine History
The diary of Sarah Connell Ayer (1791-1835) reveals the motivations of a woman caught up in the Second Great Awakening that spread across New England in the early nineteenth century. Ayer arrived in Portland in 1811 and immediately sought out a circle of female friends who espoused the same desires as did she. She joined with other church women in challenging the boundaries of Republican Motherhood ,and under the veil of the church, helped to minister in the greater Portland society.This female church culture helped women like Ayer get through the many pitfalls of womanhood in the early nineteenth century, …
Gendered "Relations" In Haverhill, Massachusetts, 1719-1742, Douglas L. Winiarski
Gendered "Relations" In Haverhill, Massachusetts, 1719-1742, Douglas L. Winiarski
Religious Studies Faculty Publications
The two autobiographical narratives- so similar in content, structure, and physical appearance-raise intriguing questions regarding the degree to which Puritan gender norms shaped the religious experiences of laymen and laywomen in early New England. Historians remain divided in their analyses of this issue. Two decades ago Charles Cohen posited a spiritual equality in Reformed theology that rendered "androgynous" the language that laymen and laywomen deployed in the oral church admission testimonies recorded by Cambridge, Massachusetts, minister Thomas Shepard during the seventeenth century. Elizabeth Reis recently challenged Cohen's argument by highlighting the "subtle but significant ways" in which women internalized Puritan …