July 2001,pp.133-188
College of Humanities and Social Sciences National Dong Hwa University
The Episcopalian Women Missionaries in
Nineteenth-Century China:
What Did Race, Gender and Class Mean to Their Work
Mei-Mei Lin
*Abstract
This paper is to discuss to what extent the concepts and theories of social stratification regarding race, gender and class can be applied to the studies of American Protestant women missionaries and their work in nineteenth-century China. American Episcopal China Mission started its work in proselytizing the Chinese from a combination of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism to Christianity in 1835. The mission was one of the first nine Protestant missions and the third American mission that answered the call from Robert Morrison of London Missionary Society (the first Protestant missionary came to China in 1807), and devoted to win the Chinese souls for Christ. Since women became the major human resources to American Protestant missions in China from the 1880s onward, it deserves our special attention to understand how American women missionaries approached their Chinese women co-workers, converts and candidates for baptism from the perspectives of race, gender and class. For those women missionaries, was there any meaning of race, gender and class to their work? Did missionaries consciously or unconsciously reveal
their feeling or sense about these three issues from their daily chores, assignments and duties? From their jobs as teacher and supervisor in day schools as well as in boarding schools for girls or boys, did they release or send any message about these issues to their Chinese students? On the other hand, Chinese women had their own cultural traditions and views (mainly Confucian) about race, gender and even class. From their contacts with American women missionaries, was there any cultural dialogue existent concerning these issues between them? What kind of message pertaining to race, gender and class Chinese women or even men could possibly receive from American women missionaries before 1900 when imperial China was struggling to make her last breath? In brief, this paper has two purposes. It presents a preliminary answer to all these questions regarding race, gender and class in American women missionaries and their work in nineteenth-century China. At the same time, it tries to find out the possibility of using social stratification to approach missionary studies across cultural and religious lines.
Dong Hwa Journal of Humanistic Studies.No.3
Keywords: woman, religion, gender, culture, class, race, Sino- American relations, American Episcopal Church
The Episcopalian Women Missionaries in
Nineteenth-Century China:
What Did Race, Gender and Class Mean to Their Work
Mei-Mei Lin
Department of History National Dong Hwa Univeristy
INTRODUCTION
Although the trends for scholars to study the relationship among race, gender and class began to prevail since the middle of twentieth century, however, there is no consensus from scholars in expounding such a relationship. The so-called “woman problem” was not only occurred in an industrial world, but also existed in a pre- or quasi-industrial society.1 Therefore, to add more light to the spectrum of different approaches in exploring such a race-gender-class relationship, this paper is to discuss to what extent we can approach our study of the Protestant women missionaries in nineteenth-century China and their work from the perspective of a race-gender-class relationship. By doing so, we may understand more about gender, class, and even race in mission studies. Further, the discussion centers it focus on the Episcopal China mission because it was one of the first nine Protestant missions and the third
American mission that came to China. The mission started in 1835.2 It attempted to introduce Christianity, its culture and value system to a land and proselytize its people who had been historically cultivated by a combination of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. In this regard, there will be very interesting by delineating what the Episcopalian women missionaries felt they had engaged and achieved from their work in nineteenth-century China. In addition to that, it will be much more meaningful by discussing how women missionaries might manipulate those Chinese with whom they encountered when missionaries consciously and others unconsciously communicated their concepts on gender and class to a different race. The Chinese people, on the other hand, certainly had their own views and tradition regarding gender and even class. Furthermore, such a case study on the woman factor of the Episcopal China mission will pave the way for the studies of other Protestant missions and how woman factor would exert influence on these missions and their development in China during the nineteenth century.3 In sum, the woman factor provides a different angle to the studies of Christianity and
2 Mei-Mei Lin Ğڒ࡚ۘğ, “Chung-kuo nei-ti-hui chih yen-chiu, 1865-1926,” (China Inland Mission, 1865-1926: An Analysis), M.A. thesis, National Chengchi University, Taipei, 1984. Appendix Five, pp. 379-389. These nine pioneer groups that worked in the field by the end of the First Opium War, 1842, are: (1) American Baptist Mission (North, 1836), (2) American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (1830), (3) American Presbyterian Mission (North, 1838), (4) Protestant Episcopal Mission in the U.S.A. (1835), (5) Reformed Dutch Mission (1842), (6) Southern Baptist Convention (1836), (7) British and Foreign Bible Society (1814), (8) London Missionary Society (1807), and (9) Religious Tract Society (1815).
3 Mei-Mei Lin, “Chung-kuo nei-ti-hui chih yen-chiu, 1865-1926,” op. cit., Appendix Six to Eight, pp. 390-407. These three appendixes list all Protestant missions and their ecclesiastical strengths in nineteeth century China, including the numbers of converts, stations, outstations, Chinese assistants, churches, foreign missionaries, schools, hospitals and the like in 1869, 1886 and 1898. 1 Rosemary Crompton and Michael Mann, “Introduction,” in Gender and Stratification, ed. by
Rosemary Crompton and Michael Mann, (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity Press, 1986), pp. 1-10.
What Did Race, Gender and Class Mean to Their Work
its impacts on Modern China.4
TRANSPLANTING WOMEN’S GENDER IDEOLOGY
From Barbara Welter, Nancy F. Cott, and Ann Douglas’ research on American women and their gender consciousness and application in the nineteenth century,5 it is no doubt that many American women, especially those women from the middle class families, embraced the true womanhood and developed social ethos, dress modes, behavior patterns to promote and strengthen this gender ideology.6 Basically, the true womanhood emphasized piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity and limited women to any matter related to their homes. According to their findings, these scholars come to agree that the American Protestantism in that century with its strong evangelical character empowered women to be more responsible for family matters, church activities and social reforms. Rather than focusing on the domestic side about what American women had struggled and achieved, this paper turns our attention to the overseas mission field, particularly China. How did women transplant their ideology from the United States to the mission field in China? By what means or in
what way did women missionaries use to apply their gender ideology to their work? From their different works and characters, did women missionaries take a similar approach to interpret the true womanhood? Was there any chance for missionaries to go beyond the limit set by the true womanhood and make their career a successful one in public?
Dong Hwa Journal of Humanistic Studies.No.3
From my preliminary study on the Episcopalian women missionaries and their gender ideology exercised from their work, I suggest that women missionaries, especially those came to China by the end of 1870s, seem to be unreserved in upholding the true womanhood in its original form as their major guideline to conduct their missionary work. 7 Sarah Sophia Medhurst Lockwood (?-1836)8 and Sarah Amelia De Saussure Boone (1808-1842) were the first two women missionaries as the China mission passed through its years of preparation.9 They were very conservative as they exercised the true womanhood ideology. Sarah Sophia Medhurst Lockwood came from a very devoted missionary family. Her father was Walter Henry Medhurst (1796-1857), a pioneer missionary of London Missionary Society to China. While stationing at Batavia (now Jakarta, in Indonesia), Java, she helped her husband, Henry Lockwood (?-1883), to
4 Because most of the historical materials listed in this paper were written by missionaries and other contemporaries in nineteenth-century China, therefore, to maintain the originality of those romanized Chinese terms from these historical materials, the author use Thomas Wade’s system of romanization ĞރԁႳࢰրğto present any Chinese characters and terms in composition.
7 Mei-Mei Lin, “The Episcopalian Women Missionaries in China by 1900: A Different Version of ‘True Womanhood,” Thought and Words: Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, vol. 35, no. 2 (June 1997), pp. 1-50.
8 In this paper, I only list those missionaries’ biographical data, which I have found from my research.
5 Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860,” American Quarterly, v. 18, n. 2, pt. 1 (Summer 1966), pp. 151-174; Nancy F. Cott, The Bonds of True Womanhood: “Woman’s
Sphere” in New England, 1780-1835 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977); Ann Douglas, The Feminization of American Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977).
9 Mei-Mei Lin, “The Episcopalian Missionaries in China, 1835-1900,” Ph.D. dissertation in history, University at Texas at Austin, May 1994, 389. From my own research about the mission and its enterprise in nineteenth-century China, it’s development can be divided into four different periods: (1) the Preparation years, 1835-1843, (2) the Era of William J. Boone (the Establishment years), 1844-1865, (3) the Trial and Error Period, 1866-1883, and (4) the Formative Period, 1884-1900.
6 Rev. Franklin Johnson, D.D., True Womanhood: On the Formation of Womanly Character (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1881); J. H. Greer, M.D., True Womanhood or True Woman’s Book of Knowledge (Chicago: Columbia Publishing House, 1903).
learn the Chinese language and the southern Fukien dialect.10 Moreover, she acted like a co-supervisor to Henry in operating their small mission school, which had twenty boys and ten girls in 1837.11 Because Mrs. Lockwood never sent her report to the mission board of American Episcopal Church, neither did she mail any greeting letter to the home base of the church about her work, it is difficult to estimate her influence in her Chinese students and her neighbors. Nevertheless, in view of the fact that she silently carried on her missionary duty in securing a base for the mission on the outskirts of China, Mrs. Lockwood seems to strictly held the boundary drawn by the true womanhood, which exhorted woman to be submissive to her husband and limited their concerns and activities within her family. Even when she felt it a great need to lend her hands to her husband, however, she was still quietly standing behind the scene and offered her help.
It is noted that Sarah Sophia Medhurst Lockwood was not exceptional from practicing the true womanhood in a conservative way. Sarah Amelia De Saussure Boone followed Mrs. Lockwood’s step and took the same gender ideology seriously. She was very pious. Her piety led her to decide to be a lifelong companion for William J. Boone (1811-1842), the third male missionary of the Episcopal China mission.12 Compared with Mrs.
Lockwood who spent her short missionary life at Batavia, Mrs. Boone traveled more with her husband from Batavia, to Macao Ğ፫ܝğ and then to Amoy Ğງܝğ, because W. J. Boone needed to speculate the possibility of moving mission station from Batavia to the coast of China during the Opium War (1839-1842).13 From Boone’s estimation, British navy would defeat the Ch’ing government and force China to open its door to the West.14 The Boones hoped that they could convert the Chinese on the Chinese soil after the war. They expected that the mission would have a brighter future if it could move the mission base from Southeast Asia to China. In this context, Mrs. Boone still carefully managed her household at Batavia and silently supported her husband as they strove to learn the Chinese language and operate a small mission school left by the Lockwoods.15 The deaths of Mrs. Lockwood and Mrs. Boone respectively made their husbands feel too painful to continue their work. Their frustration from losing their beloved wives made it impossible for them to maintain their tiny mission base at Batavia. As a result, Henry Lockwood withdrew from the mission16 whereas William J. Boone waited till he could persuade the home church to give him a better team of missionaries
10 The Chinese language was basically a language for writing. The southern Fukien dialect was a dialect spoken by many overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia.
11 The Spirit of Missions, 2: 81-83 (March 1837). Henry Lockwood’s letter (Batavia, 17 September 1836) . It is a missionary journal first published in 1836 by the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. The entire series of this missionary journal are currently conserved in the Archives of Episcopal Church at Austin, Texas. This source will be later abbreviated as “The Spirit,” in this paper.
12 William J. Boone’s private letters to John F. Hoff of Lewis Town, Pennsylvania. (Charleston, South Carolina, 3 February 1837). (in the Boone Family Papers). This collection is conserved in
the Archives of Episcopal Church at Austin, Texas.
13 Imannuel C. Y. Hsü Ğष̚ࡗğ, The Rise of Modern China (N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 4th edition), chapter 8.
14 William J. Boone’s letters to John A. Vaughan of the Board, N. Y. (Macao, 4 January 1841); (Kú-láng-ú, 23 November 1842). (in RG64-2). “RG64” is a classification number for the “China Papers” collection of missionary correspondence related to the Episcopal China mission. The collection is conserved in the Archives of Episcopal Church at Austin, Texas.
15 The Spirit, 3: 211 (July 1838).
16 William J. Boone’s letter to John A. Vaughan of the Board, N.Y. (Batavia, 5 May 1838). (in RG64-2).
What Did Race, Gender and Class Mean to Their Work
and relocate the mission to China.17 Nevertheless, based on their husbands’ illustration about their wives’ characters, Sarah S. M. Lockwood and Sarah A. De Saussure Boone must have taken the true womanhood whole-heartedly but in a very conservative way. These two women missionaries had their husbands to be the center for establishing the mission. They exercised those four major characteristics of such a gender ideology remarkably well by limiting their influence and sphere to their families in the mission field. Acted as their husbands’ right hands in managing missionary business, they seem to have had no independent character or status in the mission. All their lives and work demonstrate that they worked as a faithful and dutiful partner to male missionaries but with no voice.
To the overseas Chinese people at Batavia, especially the Chinese women dwelling there, what did Sarah S. M. Lockwood and Sarah A. De Saussure Boone’s conservative approach in practicing the true womanhood possibly mean to them? Based on Confucius and his teaching, the Chinese had their own tradition regarding woman and her role in family and society. Such a tradition can be traced its origin back to “Li-chi” (the Book of Rites, ᖃ), one of the “Shih-san-ching” (Chinese Thirteen Classics,Ȉˬགྷ). It was fully established during the Han dynasty (206 B.C. – A.D. 220) and was reinforced during the Ming-Ch’ing period (A.D. 1364- A.D. 1911).18 Based on the Confucian ideology on woman, in the course of a Chinese
woman’s life, the law of “San-ts’ung”ĞThree Obediences, ˬଂğ required her to obey her father while at home, her husband when married, and her son if widowed. To consolidate a man’s control over his wife in the family, the Chinese developed a law of “Ch’i-ch’u” (Seven Misdemeanors, ˛). Under the law of Seven Misdemeanors, a woman could be divorced by her husband and be banished from the family if she was found to have either of these seven misdemeanors, including disrespect to her parents-in-law, inability in producing a male heir, adultery, quarrelsomeness, stealing, jealousy and and vicious disease.19 Compared with the Chinese cultural and moral system in regulating woman, especially her behavior, the conservative approach of the Episcopalian women missionaries in transplanting Christianity and its moral system to the overseas Chinese might more challenge the Chinese tradition of Seven Misdemeanors than that of Three Obediences. Being Christian women dwelling in the Chinese neighborhood, women missionaries feel more dignified and pious as they practiced the true womanhood. They did not need to be worried by the threat from Seven Misdemeanors. As long as they held the four characteristics of their gender ideology adamantly, they seem to have been more equal than the Chinese women were in marital relationship. More than to be wives to their missionary husbands, they were the latter’s helpers and partners in the mission field. As to Three Obediences, it would be possible for women missionaries to find a common ground with their
Dong Hwa Journal of Humanistic Studies.No.3
17 Mei-Mei Lin, “The Episcopalian Missionaries in China, 1835-1900,” op. cit., p. 83. 19 Tsêng-Kuei Liu Ğᆒᆧෳğ, “Shih-lun han-tai hun-yin kuan-his chung ti li-fa kuan-nien,” (A preliminary study on the moral, ritual and legal concepts from the Chinese marital relationship in the Han dynasty), in Chung-kuo fu-nü-shih lun-chi hsü-chi (the second volume of the Essay Collections of the Chinese Women’s History), (Taipei: Tao-Hsiung Publishing Co., 1991), pp. 13-16.
18 Tung-Yüan Chên ĞౘڌࣧğĂChung-kuo fu-nü shêng-huo-shih (A History of the Chinese Women and Their Lives), (Taipei: Taiwan Shang-wu yin-shu-kuan, 1997, first Taiwan edition), pp. 44-61; Tien Ju-k’ang ĞϣѬğ, Male Anxiety and Female Chastity: A Comparative Study of Chinese
Chinese female neighbors, because the true womanhood also put great emphasis upon submissiveness. Submissiveness made woman, American as well as Chinese, hand the power of decision-making to man in her household. In this regard, some elements from the true womanhood practiced by women missionaries might make Christianity less foreign or strange as a new religion to Chinese women. As to the cases that Sarah S. M. Lockwood and Sarah A. De Saussure Boone had represented, they might not have made impact on the Chinese regarding gender at Batavia, because the mission school there was too small for them to exert any far-reaching influence. However, the difference between American missionaries and the Chinese living in Southeast Asia concerning gender and these two peoples’ concepts on gender did exist. As the Protestant missionaries vigorously took their work of winning souls for Christ to China, missionaries would lead the Chinese to recognize their different attitudes and notions regarding woman from many confrontations in the China mission field.
When the Episcopal China mission regrouped its manpower during and after the Opium War, it moved its base from Batavia to Shanghai Ğ˯ ঔğ, one of the five treaty ports in the Nanking TreatyĞݑִ୧ࡗğ. Shanghai became its headquarters from 1845 to the end of the nineteenth century. As the mission proceeded to its years of establishment (1844-1865), most women missionaries seem to take a moderate attitude towards the true womanhood. Since they were more involved in the mission’s general business, women missionaries gave the Chinese people a new look on woman and her role in the Chinese society. Missionaries motivated their Chinese acquaintances to think about gender and its
meaning to their families and society.
Phoebe Caroline Elliott Boone (?-1864) was William J. Boone’s second wife. Her case can represent the Episcopalian women missionaries’ experience in China regarding race, gender and class during the 1840s and 1850s. From her letter to her sister Harriet Elliott, she told Harriet about her daily routine at Shanghai. Except that arranging chores for house servants and studying the Chinese language with a Chinese tutor, Phoebe Boone supervised her stepson Henry W. Boone (1839-1925) and a Chinese boy named Chu to do their schoolwork. On Sunday, she led a bible study class in the afternoon. The class was for missionaries’ children and a small number of Chinese assistants and servants working for the mission.20 Moreover, she tried to build her own sisterhood with other women missionaries from other denominations, single and married, at Shanghai. Furthermore, Phoebe Boone wrote letters through Harriet Elliott to other Episcopalian women in the home base. She hoped she could secure a strong evangelical sisterhood and have pious ladies in the U.S. to donate money for the mission school’s building.21 For her own household matters, she asked H. Elliott to ship her some little shoes, stockings, cap ribbons, note papers of different sizes, envelopes and so on.22
In view of Phoebe Elliot Boone’s work from her correspondence, she attempted to proselytize the Chinese in her little sphere of influence. But,
20 Phoebe Caroline Elliott Boone’s letter to Harriet Elliott. (Shanghai, 29 January 1846). (in Boone Family Papers).
21 Phoebe Caroline Elliott Boone’s letter to Harriett Elliott. (Shanghai, 6 May 1846). (in Boone Family Papers).
22 Phoebe Caroline Elliott Boone’s letter to Harriett Elliott. (Shanghai, 20 July1846). (in Boone Family Papers).
What Did Race, Gender and Class Mean to Their Work
at the same time, she tried to maintain a certain degree of western standard while living in Shanghai area. Her way of managing her missionary life indicates that she implemented the true womanhood vigorously. Piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity were four pillars in guiding her work. To outreach the Chinese, Phoebe Boone could do more than what such a gender ideology had directed. She shared her observation about the Chinese with her friends in the U.S. From her correspondence, she mentioned that the Chinese she encountered were very stubborn in maintaining their habits such as cooking.23 In addition to that, local people loved to breed birds for fun and do gardening. As to the missionary business, she pointed out how hardly that missionaries from different denominations had endeavored in making a Chinese Bible during the late 1840s, which was later called the Delegate-version Bible.24
As to the true womanhood and its practicing in the mission field, it is obvious that Phoebe Caroline Elliott Boone and her work at Shanghai went beyond the conservative type first represented by Sarah S. M. Lockwood and later followed by Sarah A. De Saussure Boone. Like what these two pioneer Episcopalian women missionaries who had done for their missionary husbands at Batavia, Macao and Amoy, Phoebe Boone put great efforts in keeping her household in order at Shanghai. Unlike her two predecessors, she was more eager to develop her own gender channel/network and to win women’s support both in China mission field and in the home church. By drawing gender boundary and living within,
Phoebe Boone demonstrated she could do more than what the true womanhood had asked her for. While stationing at Shanghai, she expressed more about how she felt and what she saw from her work. Since she lived on the Chinese soil, she might have a better chance to act aggressively, outreach her Chinese female neighbors, and introduce Christianity to them. In this regard, it is undoubtedly that Phoebe Caroline Elliott Boone was a woman missionary with a moderate voice in applying the true womanhood to her work at Shanghai.
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Jeannette R. Conover (1831-1889) may be another good example to illustrate the moderate approach taken by women missionaries in applying the true womanhood to their work in the China mission field. She came to Shanghai in 1845 when the Episcopal China mission had spent ten years in securing its enterprise surrounding the treaty port and its outskirts. After being a single missionary for about seven years, she was married to Elliot H. Thomson (1834-1917), a male clerical missionary working for the same mission.25 Compared with Phoebe Boone, Jeannette Thomson took moderate approach but acted more aggressively. While holding her single status, she directed boys in the mission school at Shanghai to study geography, basic English, catechism, and the Bible.26 After married, she led a bible study class for women at HongkewĞࢆ˾ğ, an outstation to Shanghai. In addition to teaching, after married to E. H. Thomson, she trained a Chinese woman to be bible woman for evangelical purpose.27 As she stayed longer in Shanghai area so did she get more acquainted with the
23 Phoebe Caroline Elliott Boone’s letter to Emma Barnwell. (Shanghai, 10 November 1845). (in Boone Family Papers).
25 Mei-Mei Lin, “The Episcopalian Missionaries in China, 1835-1900,” op. cit., pp. 354, 368. 26 The Spirit, 21: 475-476 (September 1856). Her report to Bishop William J. Boone. (25 February
1856). 24 Phoebe Caroline Elliott Boone’s letter to Harriett Elliott. (Shanghai, 8 May 1846). (in Boone
Chinese women there. Except that carrying on her regular duties at home, Jeannette Thomson translated children’s books, visited female neighbors and taught students in day schools.28 From her observation about the Chinese woman and her status in family and society, Jeannette Thomson realized that the most important work for her to do was to make her household a good example in the eyes of the Chinese dwelling in the same neighborhood. Although she never mentioned the laws of Three Obediences or Seven Misdemeanors, she certainly knew woman’s inferiority in the Chinese familial structure. Unless she made herself a good model, it is unlikely for her to win her female neighbors’ respect and trust. Such respect and trust were the foundation for her to demonstrate how important Christianity might have been to the Chinese women and their lives. With this notion in mind, Jeanette Thomson intended to demonstrate that she could manage her household better because purity rather than submissiveness empowered her to be more independent in her household. Christianity rather than Confucianism gave woman more gender dignity. Nevertheless, to increase those Chinese women’s confidence in her and to show the power that her religion had given, Jeannette Thomson even stated that if necessary, she was willing to accompany the Chinese in illness to the mission’s hospital for medical treatment.29 To ensure medical supply for this purpose, she even asked the mission board to order additional medicine to China.30 Unlike those
Chinese women surrounding her, Jeanette Thomson was not bounded with her feet physically. Neither was she contained by any regulation due to Confucian ethics on woman. She could act freely and express frankly about her opinion towards any issue beyond her household as long as such an issue was for spreading and promoting Christianity.
Because Jeannette Thomson started her career as single woman missionary and later became a married woman missionary, such long service years made she stand in a more powerful position to develop her evangelical sisterhood31 across American and Chinese cultures. To attract more students to mission schools, she relentlessly wrote to the mission board for sending more scholarships, clothes, and school supplies to China.32 Her devotion to her work certainly impressed those church people from the U.S. During the 1870s, she became a co-supervisor to her husband E. H. Thomson in managing the Bridgman Memorial School for girls and the Baird Hall for boys.33 However, her status and reputation did not encourage Jeannette Thomson to challenge Samuel I. J. Schereschewsky (1831-1906), the third missionary bishop at the time, and his plan of integrating all Episcopal boarding schools at Shanghai into two boarding schools: the St. Mary’s Hall for girls and the St. John’s College for boys. Despite the fact that the Bridgman School and the Baird Hall had
31 Nancy F. Cott, “Young Women in the Second Great Awakening in New England,” Feminist
Studies, vol. 3, no. 1/2 (Fall 1975), pp. 15-16. With the help from their own gender, women could
be more spiritual and religious in a revival meeting. After attending a number of revival meetings, women were assure that they could be moral guardian in society. Through evangelical Protestantism, women formed a strong sisterhood to take care for one another.
28 The Spirit, 37: 318 (May 1872).
29 Jeannette R. Thomson’s letter to William Hare of the Board, N.Y. (Fredericksburg, Va., 7 March
1871). (in RG64-38). 32 Jeannette R. Thomson’s letter to Joshua Kimber of the Board, N.Y. (Shanghai, 4 February 1879). (in RG64-38).
30 Jeannette R. Thomson’s letter to Joshua Kimber of the Board, N.Y. (Shanghai, 19 September
What Did Race, Gender and Class Mean to Their Work
already become Jeannette Thomson’s base to practice her gender ideology, she still submitted herself to Bishop Schereschewsky and his patriarchal leadership in establishing a new mission school system in late 1870s. It was because of her moderate approach that made the Thomsons quietly hand both schools over to the bishop.34
In view of the confrontation between Jeannette Thomson and S. I. J. Schereschewsky, although women missionaries might have more edges than did other American women in the home front to develop their missionary career and practice their gender ideology in China, most Episcopalian women missionaries like Jeannette Thomson decided to pursue their self-fulfillment in a moderate way. They developed their career without violating the authority of the leader in their mission. More importantly, they were very scrupulous in not combating their leader about the latter’s missionary vision and development plan. Although taking a compromising attitude, Jeannette Thomson still acted aggressively. She helped the Shanghai Female School Society to advocate the necessity for women to receive a better education in girls’ schools under the influence of Christianity. She even helped the society write its constitution for formulating the rules in administration, funding, membership, staff, and annual meeting.35 During her furlough in the U.S., Jeanette Thomson tried to highlight women’s needs in the China mission in every meeting arranged by the mission board and held by women members in different
dioceses for promoting missionary interests. 36 After staying in the field for over thirty years, she certainly secured a strong sisterhood and successfully presented her views as that of woman’s to many longtime supporters, especially women members in the church.
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To the Chinese, on the other hand, what the Episcopalian women missionaries had achieved in applying their concepts of true womanhood into their missionary career was a real cultural shock. From their work, missionaries constantly confronted and challenged the Chinese concepts of gender. Unfortunately, there is no information that I can find from the correspondence or journal written by the Chinese servants, mission assistants and neighbors to reveal their thoughts and responses. Therefore, it is impossible for me to speculate to what extent missionaries would have possibly amazed their Chinese co-workers. Without the support of such historical materials, the Chinese staff and their attitudes about women missionaries and their views about the image, role, and status of these missionaries in school were still unknown. The Chinese part, how ever, needs to be further examined when materials are available. In this paper, all we can say is that women missionaries distinguished themselves in front of their Chinese staff, because they demonstrated that they could handle both their families and career very well. Even under their bishop’s paternalistic leadership, they had more advantages to pursue their own life goals, which was unable and had never been dreamed of by the Chinese women even in the third quarter of nineteenth century.
In addition to conservative and moderate types in exercising the true
34 Daniel M. Bates’ letter to Joshua Kimber of the Board, N.Y. (Shanghai, 19 February 1879). (in RG64-1).
35 A copy of the Constitution of the Shanghai Female School Society, adopted on 20 July 1869, in Jeannette R. Thomson’s file. (in RG64-38).
36 Jeanette R. Thomson’s letter to Joshua Kimber of the Board, N.Y. (Ashbourne, Pennsylvania, 3 January 1883). (in RG64-38).
womanhood in the China mission field, there were a very small number of Episcopalian women missionaries who chose to take radical action and manipulate gender power to the fullest. These women missionaries were rigorously opposed to their bishops’ patriarchal leadership in the hope that they might be able to control their own mission schools.
Lydia Mary Fay (?-1878) was a good example to illustrate how far women missionaries might devise their radical strategy to make the best of her gender power. L. M. Fay had an impressive missionary career from 1850s to the 1870s,37 because she explored the power given by the true womanhood to the extreme. At the beginning of her career, it gave her no hesitation to admire William J. Boone, the first bishop, his devotion and leadership. 38 Later on, when Channing M. Williams (1829-1910) became Boone’s successor, she spoke frankly about Williams’s hands-off policy in conducting the mission business and why it worried her.39 Finally, when S. I. J. Schereschewsky came to be the third missionary bishop, she even expressed her doubt about Schereschewsky’s ability and character in assuming such an office and make it a successful one.40 From the information released by her work reports, Lydia M. Fay was a woman with pride. She not only translated “Catechism: from Genesis to Joshua” and “Catechism: Judges to Malachi” into the Wu dialect, a vernacular used by commoners at Shanghai and its vicinity. More than that, she reinterpreted
the Chinese Classics, such as “Ta-hsüeh”(̂ጯĂthe Great Learning) and “Chung-yung”(̚Ăthe Doctrine of the Mean) into Wen-li form of classic Chinese language, which was a written language favored by the Chinese literati. 41 Her pride about her achievement as single woman missionary made her unreserved to complain about her ranking in the mission’s official reports to the mission board. She reprimanded those male clerical missionaries in charge of annual reports, because they listed her name after Huang Chin-hsia (เܕᔷٕเЍ૾Ă1824-1886), the first Chinese convert of the mission and the first Chinese minister in priesthood.42 As to school fund of the Duane Hall and Divinity school, she even more harshly criticized Bishop Williams43 and his surrogates Robert Nelson (1827-1885) and E. H. Thomson of their arbitrary methods in distributing such funds without getting her approval or informing her in advance.44
The style of Lydia Mary Fay in carrying on her career leads us to think that she might consider herself superior to some of her male colleagues in management. At least she was so sure and confident that she deserved a higher status than did any Chinese minister in the mission’s ranking system. Those factors related to seniority and character motivated L. M. Fay to take radical action to pursue her self-fulfillment. The Episcopal China mission gave Fay the opportunity, because the mission
41 “A List of Translations and Works in the Chinese Language by Members of the China Mission,”
The Church in China, v. 3, no. 8 (August 1896), pp. 107-112.
37 Mei-Mei Lin, “The Episcopalian Missionaries in China, 1835-1900,” op. cit., p. 356. 42 Elliot H. Thomson’s letter to R. B. Duane of the Board, N.Y. (Shanghai, 30 October 1875). (in RG64-35). Huang Chin-hsia was Wong Kong-chai ĞเЍ૾ğ in local dialect from the letter. 38 Lydia M. Fay’s letter to Pierre P. Irving of the Board, N.Y. (Shanghai, 17 November 1851). (in
RG64-11). 43 Elliot H. Thomson’s letter to Joshua Kimber of the Board, N.Y. (Shanghai, 17 February 1877). (in RG64-35).
39 Elliot H. Thomson’s letter to R. B. Duane of the Board, N.Y. (Shanghai, 30 October 1875). (in
RG64-35). 44 Lydia M. Fay’s letter to S. D. Denison of the Board, N.Y. (Hong Kew, 28 April 1877). (in RG64-11).
What Did Race, Gender and Class Mean to Their Work
was in its own storm during the mid-1870s. The mission was understaffed with a weak leadership. Compared with late Bishop W. J. Boone, Channing M. Williams was more passive in supervising the China mission. Being the Bishop of Yedo, Japan, in 1874, he merely took nominal leadership to oversee the China mission between 1874 and 1877 till American Episcopal Church appointed a new bishop for its China mission.45 His vast area of jurisdiction and his character gave Bishop Williams no intention to challenge Lydia Mary Fay’s personal attacks in public. Besides, Fay’s fame in mastering the Chinese language as well as in operating mission school saved her from any step taken by the bishop to make her leave the mission. As to Huang Chin-hsia, there were no letters left from him to reveal his attitude towards L. M. Fay. However, since the Chinese culture gave man a full gender power in family and society, Fay’s behavior must be very shocking to Huang and other Chinese ministers, helpers and assistants. In addition to their tolerance instructed and nurtured by Christianity, these Chinese male workers might have chosen to be silent not only because L. M. Fay was a woman from a different race but also because she was protected by those treaties, which were signed between China and the U.S. and were considered by the Chinese in general as unequal ones. No matter how unhappy and unsatisfied the Chinese mission workers were, it was most likely that they just took it by swallowing their anger and maintaining a working relationship with L. M. Fay.
Of course, it is noted that L. M. Fay still had her limitation as she took such a radical way to implement the true womanhood in the mission field. When Samuel I. J. Schereschewsky returned to China and took his
bishopric leadership, L. M. Fay handed her school—the Duane Hall to the bishop without any resistance. In view of her changing attitude and behavior, what really made her change her radical approach and turn to be more “submissive”? Undoubtedly, it was due to the fact that the bishop was at least as the same determined as she was in leading the mission. More important, the bishop was more knowledgeable than her in mastering the Chinese language. S. I. J. Schereschewsky’s translation on the Old Testament into Chinese was internationally well-known at the time.46 Another possibility regarding to her changing might be related to L. M. Fay’s failing health. Her illness might make it impossible for her to further bargain with the bishop as she had been accustomed to. As a matter of fact, she died in 1878 at ChefooĞέğ, one year after Bishop Schereschewsky took his office.47
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It should be pointed out that Lydia Mary Fay was not the only woman missionary who intended to take radical approach and challenge bishopric leadership in the Episcopal China mission. Mary C. Nelson (1856-?), starting to work for the mission in 1876, also held an impressive record. She seemed to follow L. M. Fay and made herself the sole leader of the Emma G. Jones Memorial School for girls in the late 1870s. When M. C. Nelson intended to take a similar approach like that of Fay’s by emphasizing her own right in managing the school, Bishop
46 “The Concept of Women’s Sphere and Its Application to the Studies of Protestant Women Missionaries and Their Work in Nineteenth-Century China: Taking American Episcopal Church as an Example,” The Journal of History, v. 17 (May 2000), pp. 136-137. This journal is published by the Dept. of History and Graduate School of History, National Chengchi University, Taipei.
Schereschewsky won’t budge an inch. Instead, in the face of her challenge, the bishop was even more determined to place the school under his own control. In his integration plan for mission schools, M. C. Nelson could merely serve as his surrogate and follow his instruction in managing the Emma G. Jones School. Regardless of the fact that the Woman’s Auxiliary of the mission board fully financed this school and paid Mary’s salary, M. C. Nelson, however, just started her career and had no time to make any remarkable achievement that would impress the mission board to give her more support in this fight over leadership. When she openly conflicted with the bishop, she failed to persuade the board to accept her side of story. As a result, she lost the fight and reluctantly handed her school over, to the bishop. Emma G. Jones school, therefore, became part of St. Mary’s Hall. As to the Nelsons, the antagonism between Mary and the bishop forced her parents Robert and Rose (1827-1885), who had been devoted to the mission for over thirty years, to take side with her and withdraw altogether from the China mission for good.48
In short, based on their career and work performance in nineteenth-century China, the Episcopalian women missionaries took the true womanhood seriously and practiced such an ideology in conservative, moderate and radical forms. To those Chinese ministers, students, teachers, and assistants who either worked with them in church or in school, women missionaries directly or indirectly revealed what they thought about their gender. Despite the fact that some of them failed to challenge the male,
patriarchal, administrative structure of the mission, their courage and pride in managing mission schools, leading biblical study, visiting neighbors, and offering medical help, all substantially challenged the Chinese thought of virtuous woman, who was expected to enjoy a life of seclusion and cherish her intellectual idleness.49
PRESENTING GENDER POWER AND OPPORTUNITY
In addition to transplanting the true womanhood with their different approaches on the Chinese soil, the Episcopalian women missionaries also grasped the opportunity from their work in mission stations and out stations, to demonstrate their gender power to the Chinese, especially to women. Their attitudes towards their work gave their Chinese Christian sisters a new light to think about the latter’s role and status in family as well as in society. More than discussing missionary impact on political, diplomatic and cultural life of the Chinese people, women missionaries helped redirect or even transform the Chinese social ethos, ethics and laws related to woman in the long run. In late imperial China, the Chinese women followed Confucianism, especially neo-Confucianism, and were expected to play an extremely subordinate role in their society. To be more explicit, woman was educated to cultivate herself zealously throughout her life by showing her “Ssu-tê”( Four Womanly Attributes, αᇇ). Her reputation depends and was judged by others on such Four Womanly Attributes, including Fu-tê (virtue, ᇇ), Fu-yen (speech, ֏), Fu-jung (demeanor, ट), and Fu-kung (work, Α).50 When Confucianism
48 Mei-Mei Lin, “The Episcopalian Women Missionaries in China by 1900: A Different Version of ‘True Womanhood,” op. cit., pp. 32-38; Mei-Mei Lin, “The Episcopalian Missionaries in China, 1835-1900,” op.cit., p. 363.
49 R. L. McNabb, A.M., The Women of the Middle Kingdom, (N.Y.: Young People’s Missionary Movement, 1907), pp. 39-40.
What Did Race, Gender and Class Mean to Their Work
became a quasi-religion, it encouraged women to pursue or demonstrate her virtue, purity and chastity (“Chên-chieh”, ༼). For instance, to prove that she was a virtuous woman in front of her relatives and neighbors, a Chinese woman would commit suicide after learning that her fiancé just died, or would still marry to her deceased fiancé and become a young widow.51 However, when women missionaries came to China and confronted the Chinese gender ideology on woman, they gave their Chinese observers a new horizon regarding gender and class. Their missionary career in education, administration, philanthropy and medicine certainly forced the Chinese to reconsider woman and her role, status and work in family, kin, and society. Under the impact stimulated and made by women missionaries, the Chinese women might have other methods or options to prove their virtue, purity and chastity in society.
In this regard, for the studies on Christianity and its impact on China, the woman factor may deserve more of our attention. Taking anti-Christian riots for example, scholars had contributed to our understanding about all philosophical, ethical, political and cultural factors that caused anti-Christian riots and soured the relationship between China and the West in the second half of nineteenth century.52 The woman factor which I argue
in this paper, on the other hand, can be seen as another possible cause that made the Chinese uneasy towards Christianity and the Protestant missionaries as women missionaries became fearless spokeswomen for this religion. The woman factor might increase the anxiety of the Chinese, because women missionaries consciously exercised their gender power in front of the Chinese women from their successful career. As a matter of fact, to the Chinese living in nineteenth-century China, those professions which missionaries took, such as teacher, doctor, and administrator, were considered to be man’s job, not that of woman’s. The appearance of women missionaries in local society and their work performance virtually threatened the Chinese Confucian tradition on gender.
History of Women’s Culture,” Late Imperial China, v. 13, no. 1 (June 1992), pp. 43-44.
51 Wan-Yao Chou Ğ્৬ğ, “Ch’ing-tai tung-cheng hsüeh-chê yü fu-nü ti chi-tuan tao-tê hsing-wei,” (The connection between what Tung-cheng scholars advocated and women’s radical moral behavior in Ch’ing period), Ta-lu tsa-chih, vol. 87, no. 4 (October 1993), pp. 13-38. 52 Paul A. Cohen, China and Christianity: The Missionary Movement and Growth of Chinese
Anti-Foreignism, 1860-1870, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963); Shih-Ch’iang Lü Ğӕ၁ૻğ, Chung-kuo kuan-shen fan-chiao ti yuan-yin, 1860-1874, (The Causes for the Chinese Officals and Gentry Against Christianity, 1860-1874), (Taipei: Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, 1966); John King Fairbank ed., The Missionary Enterprise in China and America, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974); Joseph W. Esherick,
The Origins of the Boxer Rebellion, (Berkeley, Ca.: University of California Press, 1987); Jacques Gernet, China and the Christian Impact: A Conflict of Cultures, translated by Janet Lloyd, (N.Y.: Cambridge University Press, 1982); and John D. Young Ğຍᐷğ, Confucianism and Chrisitanity: The First Encounter, (Kowloon, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1983).
Dong Hwa Journal of Humanistic Studies.No.3
For instance, Emma G. Jones (?-1879) came to work for the Episcopal China mission in 1845 when the mission still struggled to secure its base at Shanghai.53 As missionary teacher, she was very devoted to her career. She taught English in a mission school and had no less than eighteen boys under her care.54 Her role as school superintendent and teacher did exert a certain degree of influence in a small circle of Chinese youth. Ten years later after E. G. Jones withdrew from the field, Yang Hie-ding, one of her students, gave a complementary address to honor her in a local missionary meeting at Hongkew. In this address, Yang admired Miss Jones of her good guardianship. To Yang, E. G. Jones acted like his mother. During his school
53 Mei-Mei Lin, “The Episcopalian Missionaries in China, 1835-1900,” op. cit., 359. 54 The Spirit, 12: 1: 17-19 (January 1847).
years, she not only taught students in classroom but also nursed them when they were ill, taught them table manner, instructed them to do clothing and bedding, watched their behavior and gave them advice or discipline if necessary.55 Based on the information given by Yang, it is noted that E. G. Jones successfully held a combined father-mother image. Academically, she directed them to use a different language to strengthen students’ intellectual capacity. Domestically, she relied on a western, Christian value system to formulate her instruction guideline.
As to her thought in operating a mission school for girls, Emma G. Jones briefly mentioned her difficulty in recruiting young girls. The major problem as she understood was due to the insistence by the Chinese that a woman of virtue in late Ch’ing period should not be equipped with any talent or knowledge which were deemed to be man’s. Most women might receive a very basic education from their mothers, centering on Three Obediences and Four Womanly Attributes, which the Chinese believed would improve her virtue and make her a dutiful wife and a loving mother (Hsien-ch’i liang-muĂኰ؍։ϓ) in her future marriage and family life.In other words, what E. G. Jones had encountered was the notion of “Nü-tzu wu-ts’ai pien-shih-tê” (̖̃̄ܮߏᇇĂa woman is virtuous only if she is untalented), which was stubbornly maintained by the Chinese in late imperial China.56 For those women coming from the official-scholars’
families, they might have chance to study the Four Books and Five Classics (“Ssu-shu wu-ching”, α३̣གྷ) and even practiced their talents in writing poems. However, the notion that virtuous women demanded no education substantially limited such an intellectual exchange between women to their very intimate female circle. The Chinese elite women certainly contributed to a woman’s culture, but such culture could only exist and be treasured by women in their private zone such as inner chamber or garden in the rear of the house.57
Because the Chinese supported the notion that a virtuous woman demanded no education, under such circumstances, Emma G. Jones could only recruit less than ten students as she strove to start a girls’ school at Shanghai. To the end of her career, she was able to keep about ten students in her school. Perhaps because she recognized that it would take her too much time to change the Chinese notion regarding women’s education and its value, she never directly challenged the Chinese by emphasizing the necessity for woman to receive education. Neither did she purchase any girl to be her student like some missionaries of other denominations had done in the mid-nineteenth century. 58 She recruited students scrupulously and cautioualy. Some of these students came from those families associated with the mission. Because these students’ fathers worked as servants for missionaries, such an employer-and-employee relationship might not make these Chinese families strongly opposed to this new education for their daughters. Other students, who came to her mission
55 “A Complementary address on behalf of Miss Emma G. Jones” by Yang-Hie-Ding, one of her Chinese pupils, before the Chinese P. E. missionary meeting, on 21 April 1872 in the Church of Our Saviour, Hongkew, China. (in RG64-18).
56 Tung-Yüan Chên Ğౘڌࣧğ, “Chung-kuo ti nü-tzu chiao-yü: kuo-ch’ü ti li-shih yü hsien-tsai ti ch’üeh-tien,” (Women’s education in China: its history in the past and its weakness at the present), in Chung-kuo fu-nü-shih lun-chi hsü-chi, op. cit., pp. 243-247.
57 Dorothy Ko, “Pursuing Talent and Virtue: Education and Women’s Culture in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century China,” Late Imperial China, vol. 13, no. 1 (June 1992), pp. 30-33.
What Did Race, Gender and Class Mean to Their Work
school, were persuaded to register, because these students had been already betrothed by their parents to those students currently studying in the mission’s school for boys.59 In view of Emma G. Jones and her career from the mid-1840s to 1861, although she had some cultural barrier to overcome in pursuing a successful missionary life, her role as teacher as well as administrator certainly impressed her students both in mission schools for boys and for girls. Her style of building up her own career by using persuasion in recruitment and offering motherly care to students became a legend for her successors to follow. During the mid-1870s, the Woman’s Auxiliary of the Episcopal mission board began to establish a school for girls at Shanghai and gave it fully financial support in honor of her.60
The possible impact from the woman factor on the Chinese and their familial and social system in dealing with gender and even class will be further reflected from Sarah Esther Lawson and her career as missionary teacher. Coming to serve the mission near the end of its trial and error period, S. E. Lawson taught English at St. Mary’s Hall. From her letters to the mission board, S. E. Lawson stated the difficulty for a single woman in holding any teaching position in China. Such a difficulty particularly troubled those missionaries who taught in mission schools for boys. Despite the fact that she never mentioned any cultural concept of the Chinese towards virtuous woman, S. E. Lawson frankly expressed that the Chinese had no confidence in placing their children under the guidance of a woman.61 She must have been very frustrated for a while but continued
to work as missionary teacher. Once when S. E. Lawson became a faculty at St. John’s College, which accepted male students only, did she realize that students themselves were not opposed to being taught by a single woman. In her English class in the college, she was very satisfied with her students’ performance from their studies. She considered every one of her students an angel to her.62 For S. E. Lawson, the Chinese prejudice regarding gender and even class could be corrected by a dutiful female teacher if she had the opportunity to demonstrate to her students how intelligent and knowledgeable a woman like her could be. If students stayed longer at St. John’s, S. E Lawson thought she would eventually gain their respect.
59 The Spirit, 21: 375-378 (July 1856). Emma G. Jones’ report to Bishop Boone. (Shanghai, 6
March 1856).
60 The Spirit, 44: 196-197 (May 1879). The school was Emma G. Jones’ Memorial School for Girls. 61 Sarah Esther Lawson’s letter to Joshua Kimber of the Board, N.Y. (St. John’s college, Shanghai,
20 June 1883). (in RG64-19).
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To further break the Chinese tradition in deteriorating woman to a lower class in society, Sarah Esther Lawson arranged some social gatherings for students from boys’ and girls’ schools in the hope that they might get more acquainted with one another.63 Based on the Chinese custom of “Nan-nü shou-shou pu-ch’in” Ğշ̃צ̙Ꮠğ, parents separated girls from boys in the age of seven till they became adult and got married.64 According to Confucianism and its social ethics, the Chinese held seriously about the concept of “Nan-nü yu-pieh” Ğշ̃ѣҾğ, which indicates that woman should not be treated equally than man. Therefore, to
62 Sarah Esther Lawson’s letter to Joshua Kimber of the Board, N.Y. (St. John’s college, Shanghai, 10 October 1883). (in RG64-19).
63 Sarah Esther Lawson’s letter to Joshua Kimber of the Board, N.Y. (St. John’s college, Shanghai, 13 December 1883). (in RG64-19).
64 Tung-Yüan Chên ĞౘڌࣧğĂChung-kuo fu-nü shêng-huo-shih, op. cit., p. 242; Fêng-Chieh Chao Ğᅀᆂ⋪ğ, Chung-kuo fu-nü tsai fa-lü shang chih ti-wei, (The legal status for women in China), (Taipei: Tao-Hsiang Publishing Co., 1993), p. 3.
most students’ parents and the Chinese living in the mission’s neighborhood, S. E. Lawson’s attitude and behavior were in school might be a threat against their concepts on gender. However, what S. E. Lawson had done in exercising gender power from her job must have impressed those people who either supported or opposed to her style of teaching and management. For her students, it was an unprecedented opportunity as well as an unusual experience for them to know the other gender in public before they got married respectively and started their own families.
As women missionary teachers gave a cultural shock to the Chinese so did women medical missionaries. Kate J. Sayres was a trained nurse65 and began her service in 1883. She worked for the Elizabeth Bunn Memorial Hospital for Women and Children at Wuchang Ğڠپğ, a key Episcopal mission station in Central China.66 As she started her career, she felt very frustrated because the local people were indifferent to her and her service. Her problem from learning the Chinese language forced her to seriously study the language at Shanghai in the hope that it would help her regain her confidence and carry on her work in the interior of China.67 To improve her conversation skills, Kate J. Sayres was assigned to accompany Chinese bible women introducing Christianity to the area outside St. John’s College.68 However, she left no medical report to the mission board. It’s unsure that how many people K. J. Sayres had treated while serving the
mission as missionary nurse. Without having her missionary record, it is unlikely for us to speculate her cultural impact and gender influence in the Chinese circle. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly that her short career at Wuchang at least astonished the Chinese there. The Chinese living in such interior area like Wuchang in the second half of nineteenth century were more conservative about their concepts on gender than others dwelling in those treaty ports. Working in such an unfriendly or even alienated environment, K. J. Sayres more or less demonstrated that a woman rather than a man could offer medical help for women and children in their local society. To pursue her self-fulfillment, K. J. Sayres tried to continue her career at Shanghai. Regrettably, she failed, because she could not maintain a cordial working relationship with M. Helen Thompson, a contracted doctor working for the mission at the time.69 It seems somewhat ironical that a strong character made women missionaries stay to meet all kinds of challenge given by a different race and culture, and it was due to the same character that made them ill-tolerant with one another to pursue their devoted career together. Notwithstanding, Kate J. Sayres’s experience might be a personal unhappy one for herself. But, it did not stop other American women from becoming medical missionaries for the Episcopal China mission.
After Kate J. Sayres, Marie Haslep came to China in 1888 when the mission attempted to secure its stations better in Central China. She was a medical doctor and was assigned to work for the Elizabeth Bunn Memorial
65 S. I. J. Schereschewsky’s letter to Joshua Kimber of the Board, N.Y. (Geneva, 20 July 1883). (in RG64-28).
66 The Spirit, 49: 193-194. (April 1884).
67 The Spirit, 50: 395-396 (July 1885). Mrs. Kate J. Sayres’ letter to the Board, N.Y. (St. John’s
college, Shanghai, 9 April 1885). 69 M. Helen Thompson’s letter to Joshua Kimber of the Board, N.Y. (Philadelphia, 18 March 1884). (in RG64-38).
What Did Race, Gender and Class Mean to Their Work
Hospital at Wuchang.70 According to her work report, M. Haslep described that she integrated such jobs as doctor, nurse, pharmacist and assistant all in one. To proceed her work, she felt desperately to have a well-educated Chinese woman to be her assistant in the hospital all the time.71 Of course, based on the Chinese concepts on gender, it was unlikely for her to find such an assistant nearby by herself. Finally, the Shanghai mission headquarters answered her need and sent a Chinese young woman named Miss Huang (possibly a daughter of Huang Chin-hsia’s) to be trained for this purpose.72 M. Haslep taught Miss Huang some basic knowledge about medicine and pharmacy. Perhaps it was owing to Huang’s help, and it was also possibly because of local people’s curiosity, M. Haslep informed the mission headquarters from her first annual report that she had treated 956 patients in three months. Such a positive response given by the Chinese to her profession and service encouraged her to stay at Wuchang. To promote the hospital’s business and offer more medical helps, M. Haslep even asked William J. Boone (1846-1891, son of the first Bishop Boone with the same name and the fourth missionary bishop) to seriously consider her request of sending more medical equipment and medicine to support the hospital.73
In light of her relationship with her assistant Miss Huang, Marie Haslep gave Huang a very positive evaluation on her service.74 For the benefits of the hospital work as well as for Huang’s career future, M.
Haslep sent Huang back to Shanghai for receiving advanced medical training. Furthermore, she recommended Huang through Elliot H. Thompson, a contracted doctor working for the mission, to Bishop Boone for getting a formal medical education in the U.S. if the bishop thought it’s a good investment in terms of human resources. Despite the fact that the same gender made M. Haslep recognize Huang’s ability and potentiality; but, based on her observation on the Chinese attitude towards woman, M. Haslep also pointed out that Miss Huang had two disadvantages to be a career woman in front of her own people after graduated from medical school. As she had admitted, from the Chinese standard, Huang was too young and lack of status. At that time, she was less than thirty and was still single. She might be unable to gain her patients’ confidence because of her age and spinsterhood.75 In view of M. Haslep’s recommendation on Miss Huang, she at least recognized that some Chinese women had intelligence to become career women if the Chinese cultural tradition related to gender allowed them to do so. She might hope that some Chinese talented women would earn their own race’s respect from their professions and services someday.
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Through her efforts and devotion, the Elizabeth Bunn Memorial Hospital at Wuchang became Marie Haslep’s own medical and evangelical enterprise in the 1890s. To provide high quality care for women and children living in the interior, she complained to the mission board in the U.S. that the hospital was too small in space. As she mentioned, the hospital sometimes had to accept women and children to be in patients.
70 The Spirit, 53: 85 (March 1888).
71 The Spirit, 54: 154-155 (April 1889). Extract of Marie Haslep’s letter (Wuchang, 4 February 1889).
72 Marie Haslep’s letter to William S. Langford of the Board, N.Y. (Wuchang, 28 May 1888). (in RG64-15).
73 Marie Haslep’s letter to William J. Boone, Shanghai. (Wuchang, 19 June 1889). (in RG64-15). 75 Marie Haslep’s letter to Elliot H. Thompson of Shanghai. (Shanghai, 11 July 1892). (in RG64-15).
Once patients stayed in the hospital for treatment, it needed more space for the hospital to provide rooms for patients’ relatives, especially for children patients’ mothers to be with their children under treatment. By emphasizing the evangelical purpose associated with medical treatment, M. Haslep arranged Chinese bible women to do a basic dialogue of religion with those in patients. After Miss Huang was sent to Shanghai for advanced medical education, M. Haslep began tirelessly to train two other Chinese women to be her medical assistants. 76 After five years of effort, according to her annual report of 1893-1894, M. Haslep had treated 4,409 patients of whom 2,538 were new.77 Although she made such a great achievement by using her medical service to introduce Christianity to the Chinese in the interior, it was the problem of mastering the Chinese language that eventually caused M. Haslep to abandon her career as medical missionary in China.78 Notwithstanding, through her devoted career, she certainly presented gender, its power, and job opportunity for women, to Miss Huang and two other female medical assistants under her instruction. When more local people came to her for medical treatment and advice, her skills in helping the Chinese women and children to restore their health must have had some impacts on the latter pertaining to their concepts about what woman could do and should do in family and society.
As Marie Haslep left, the Episcopal medical work for women was
picked up and continued by Mary V. Glenton near the end of nineteenth century. M. V. Glenton came to China in December 1898. To help her to be more accustomed to her duty, she at first was assigned to provide all necessary medical help to the Episcopal mission staffs and mission schools79 in the Wuchang-Hankow Ğ႔˾ğ area. In addition to her medical work, M. V. Glenton was also dispatched by the mission to teach English whenever an Episcopal mission school in the area was understaffed. Before reopening the Elizabeth Bunn Memorial Hospital, she even had the wife of one governor’s staff in the Hupei province ĞസΔ࠷ğ to be under her medical care.80 This case might have brought her with a certain good reputation in local society, and made the local people to be more friendly with her and to trust her medical skills in treating women and children. Under such circumstances, the hospital was reopened to offer local people medical help in 1899.81 According to her work report of 1899-1900, M. V. Glenton had 812 patients receiving her treatment, of whom 514 were new.82 From her report of 1900-1901, she restarted her work in September of 1900 after social order was restored from the turmoil caused by the Boxer Rebellion. She recorded 8,312 patients receiving medical help in her hospital. Those cases in her charge included accidents, opium smoking, obstetric cases, teeth problem, vaccinations, minor
79 These schools included the Boone Memorial School for Boys, the Jane Bohlen Memorial School for Girls and the Divinity School.
76 Marei Haslep’s letter to Joshua Kimber of the Board, N.Y. (Shanghai, 6 July 1893). (in RG64-15).
80 The Spirit, 64: 370-371 (July 1899); Marie Haslep’s letter to Joshua Kimber of the Board, N.Y. (Wuchang, 28 July 1899). (in RG64-12).
77 Marie Haslep’s report of woman’s hospital for the year from July 1, 1893 to July 1, 1894. (in RG64-15).
81 Mary V. Glenton’s letter to Joshua Kimber of the Board, N.Y. (Wuchang, 28 July 1899). (in RG64-12).
78 Frederick R. Graves’s letter to William S. Langford of the Board, N.Y. (Shanghai, 9 March 1895). (in RG64-13).
82 Mary V. Glenton’s annual report for the year ending June 30, 1900, to Frederick R. Graves of Shanghai. (in RG64-14).
What Did Race, Gender and Class Mean to Their Work
surgical operations and medical treatment at patient’s home.83 In view of Mary V. Glenton’s career before the end of nineteenth century, like her predecessors, she must have impressed many Chinese with her medical knowledge and skills, as they received her medical help or accompanied their families and friends to seek for her help in the mission hospital.
From their various careers that the Episcopalian women medical missionaries had endeavored in China, it is suffice to say that the Chinese living near the end of the nineteenth century became more open-minded and began to accept women missionaries as their equals. However, it doesn’t promise that the Chinese people were ready to accept the Chinese women who followed women missionaries to develop their own career in China. To the Chinese women, missionaries sparked the fire in leading them to reconsider who they were and what they could do. The confrontation between missionaries and the Chinese with whom missionaries encountered stimulated some Chinese women to seek their new gender identity and search for any possible new meaning in their lives.
Compared with the local residents and their general response to the Episcopal medical work in the Wuchang-Hankow area, the Chinese at Shanghai, men and women, would be more ready to seek medical help from a woman missionary doctor. For instance, near the end of the mission’s formation years, Mary J. Gates received her education at the Woman’s Medical College of Philadelphia and came to work in 1896.84 She was dispatched to charge the St. Luke’s Woman’s Hospital at
Shanghai.85 From her annual report of 1897-1898 and that of 1898-1899, she had already treated 16,186 patients. These patients included out patients, in patients, patients in dispensary, and patients from home visits. While offering her medical help, M. J. Gates had a whole team of evangelists, composed of a clerical missionary, a Chinese pastor’s wife, a woman missionary and a Chinese bible woman, introducing Christianity to patients, their families and friends.86 Such an evangelical team made M. J. Gates feel less lonesome to practice medicine in China. The statistics from her reports demonstrate that the Chinese at Shanghai became more familiar with the Westerners living in their neighborhood.
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Why she had such an impressive record? It is noted that Shanghai had been a treaty port for over fifty years when M. J. Gates started her service. Compared with her predecessors, she might have a better chance to exercise gender power from her job. Through her service, she took a better position to persuade the Chinese to give their daughters the opportunity for getting education and to develop a career after graduation. To the Chinese women, after having been treated by M. J. Gates or watching her practice medicine from the sideline, they might have been encouraged to step out the boundary set by their fathers, brothers and sons. In short, woman medical missionary herself could play as microcosm of gender opportunity to her female patients and observers. More than to be someone’s daughter, later someone else’s wife, mother and grandmother, the Chinese women could play other roles outside their homes, families and kinship.
85 The Spirit, 63: 456-457 (September 1898).
83 Mary V. Glenton’s annual report for the year ending June 30, 1901. (in RG64-12). 86 Mary J. Gates’s report of St. Luke’s Woman’s Hospital, Shanghai, for the year from July 1898 to June 1899. (in RG64-12).
