In early American history, a number of women played a leading role in religious communities. In the seventeenth century, Anne Hutchinson became a prominent religious figure in colonial New England. She challenged the teachings of the Puritan ministers of the colony and developed her own unorthodox religious beliefs. In the eighteenth century, Ann Lee founded a utopian religious community, which came to be known as the Shakers. The Shakers would flourish in a number of communities for many decades. Elizabeth Ann Seton founded a new women’s religious order within the Roman Catholic Church – the Sisters of Charity. She also contributed to the growth of parochial schools in America. In the nineteenth century, Ellen Gould Harmon White founded the Seventh Day Adventists. Each of these women contributed greatly to the development of religious traditions in early America.
Women of God
Anne Hutchinson
Although many people assume Puritans escaped England to establish religious freedom, they proved to be just as intolerant as the English state church. When dissenters, including Anne Hutchinson, challenged Governor Winthrop in Massachusetts Bay in the 1630s, they were banished.
Anne Hutchinson ran afoul of Puritan authorities for her criticism of the evolving religious practices in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In particular, she held that Puritan ministers in New England taught a shallow version of Protestantism emphasizing hierarchy and actions—a “covenant of works” rather than a “covenant of grace.” Literate Puritan women like Hutchinson presented a challenge to the male ministers’ authority. Indeed, her major offense was her claim of direct religious revelation, a type of spiritual experience that negated the role of ministers. Because of Hutchinson’s beliefs and her defiance of authority in the colony, especially that of Governor Winthrop, Puritan authorities tried and convicted her of holding false beliefs. In 1638, she was excommunicated and banished from the colony. She went to Rhode Island and later, in 1642, sought safety among the Dutch in New Netherland. The following year, Algonquian warriors killed Hutchinson and her family. In Massachusetts, Governor Winthrop noted her death as the righteous judgment of God against a heretic.
Ann Lee and the Shakers
The Shakers provide another example of a community established with a religious mission. The Shakers started in England as an outgrowth of the Quaker religion in the middle of the eighteenth century. Ann Lee, a leader of the group in England, emigrated to New York in the 1770s, having experienced a profound religious awakening that convinced her that she was “mother in Christ.” She taught that God was both male and female; Jesus embodied the male side, while Mother Ann (as she came to be known by her followers) represented the female side. To Shakers in both England and the United States, Mother Ann represented the completion of divine revelation and the beginning of the millennium of heaven on earth.
In practice, men and women in Shaker communities were held as equals—a radical departure at the time—and women often outnumbered men. Equality extended to the possession of material goods as well; no one could hold private property. Shaker communities aimed for self-sufficiency, raising food and making all that was necessary, including furniture that emphasized excellent workmanship as a substitute for worldly pleasure.
The defining features of the Shakers were their spiritual mysticism and their prohibition of sexual intercourse, which they held as an example of a lesser spiritual life and a source of conflict between women and men. Rapturous Shaker dances, for which the group gained notoriety, allowed for emotional release. The high point of the Shaker movement came in the 1830s, when about six thousand members populated communities in New England, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky.
Source: Corbett, P.S., Janssen V., Lund, J., Pfannestiel, T., Vickery, P., & Waskiewicz, S. U.S. History. OpenStax. 30 December 2014.
Elizabeth Ann Seton and the Sisters of Charity
Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton (August 28, 1774 – January 4, 1821) was the first native-born citizen of the United States to be made a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. She was canonized on September 14, 1975.
Seton started the first Catholic school in the country. This school was at Emmitsburg, Maryland. She also founded the first American congregation of religious sisters. It is called the Sisters of Charity.
Elizabeth Ann Bayley was born on August 28, 1774. She was the second child of Dr. Richard Bayley and Catherine Charlton of New York City. They were Protestants. On January 25, 1794, at age 19, Elizabeth married William Magee Seton, aged 25. He was a wealthy businessman. They had five children.
Seton’s husband died in Italy on December 27, 1803. Seton learned about Roman Catholicism in Italy. After she came back to the United States, she joined the Catholic Church. She was received on March 14, 1805 by the Rev. Matthew O’Brien, pastor of St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, New York.
In 1809, Seton moved to Emmitsburg, Maryland. A year later she started the Saint Joseph’s Academy and Free School. That school was dedicated to the education of Catholic girls.
On July 31, Elizabeth established a religious community in Emmitsburg. This community took care of poor children. This was the first congregation of religious sisters to be founded in the United States. Its school was the first free Catholic school in America. This was the start of the Catholic parochial school system in the United States. Seton spent the rest of her life developing her religious community.
Source: Elizabeth Ann Seton, Wikipedia.
Ellen Gould Harmon White and the Seventh Day Adventists
Ellen Gould Harmon White (born November 26, 1827 in Gorham , Maine as Ellen Gould Harmon , died July 16, 1915 in Elmshaven , California ) was a cofounder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Ellen Gould Harmon was born on November 26, 1827 in Gorham (Maine) in the Northeast of the US. She was the twin daughter of a poor Hatter family belonging to the Methodist Church . Father and mother were considered dedicated church members and Ellen also took the Christian faith very seriously since early childhood.
At the age of nine, she was so badly injured during an altercation on the way to school by the stone throw of another girl that she was “unconscious for three weeks” and “struck for years by fainting fits”. She was unable to attend school. Ellen was from then on “sickly with little chance of complete recovery”, but continued to educate herself by reading.
From the year 1840, the Harmon family was in close contact with the Miller movement and, together with the other faithful, awaited the Second Coming of Christ on October 22, 1844. In June 1842, Ellen was baptized into the Methodist Church. A year later, however, she and her family were expelled from their church for “millerism.” But even after the absence of the Second Coming on the predicted date, the family continued to follow Miller.
Exactly two months after the last “return date” passed, Ellen had “her first vision during a prayer session , which greatly helped stabilize the young Advent movement.” This “face” she saw at age seventeen on December 22, 1844 , was the first of a long series that was to continue until the end of her life. After a second vision, Ellen began to make her visions public and preached in different cities.
In 1845 she met the young preacher James White for the first time, whom she married on 30 August 1846.
Ellen Gould Harmon White embraced the Sabbath doctrine , which calls for the “holding of Saturday” as a biblical day of rest . In April 1847, this teaching was confirmed to her by a vision. Despite financial difficulties, the White couple traveled tirelessly through the United States to proclaim the knowledge of the Sabbath and the Second Coming of Christ.
Through the combination of organizational talent, personal commitment, spiritual missionary awareness and the opportunity for publication, the White couple promoted the growth and structural construction of the so-called Advent Movement, which was founded in 1863 as a Seventh-day Adventist Church . James White became one of the first presidents, while Ellen White never held an official position. Through her spiritual mandate, numerous books and regular newspaper articles, however, she decisively influenced the decisions of the young church.
Ellen White was referred to by many Adventists in her lifetime as a “prophetess” and therefore often had a special position. She herself never contradicted this claim, but rather described herself as the “messenger of the Lord,” whose writings were a “little light” and should lead to the “great light” (to the Bible).
Ellen White is one of the major nineteenth-century religious figures in North America. She is one of the few women who were instrumental in the emergence of a religious community.
In her numerous writings she devotes herself to questions of community life and the Christian way of life. In addition, she designed comprehensive concepts of history stretching from biblical times to the present. During her lifetime, more than 5,000 of her articles appeared in journals and 40 books; Today, including the collections of their 50,000 manuscript pages, more than 100 titles have been published in English. The most well-known work is Steps to Christ.
White had a significant influence on the emergence of Adventist welfare and educational institutions.
To date, Ellen G. White’s position within the Seventh-day Adventist Church is controversial. The Seventh-day Adventist World Conference (Seventh-day Conference) recognizes in Ellen White’s writings a “gift of prophecy” and a “voice of truth,” useful for “comfort, guidance, instruction, and rebuke.” At the same time, church leaders emphasize that Ellen G. White’s writings are by no means equal to biblical writings, but that the Bible alone is considered a “standard” and “touchstone.”
Source: Ellen Gould Harmon White, Wikipedia.
Women of God
Anne Hutchinson
Anne Hutchinson (baptized July 20, 1591 – August or September 1643), was a religious dissenter in Puritan New England. She was the defendant in the most famous of the trials intended to suppress religious dissent in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. She was born Anne Marbury in Alford, Lincolnshire, England. She, her husband William, and their children left England for the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634. Once settled, she began holding weekly meetings in her home to discuss sermons and theology.
Her religious views did not agree with those of her Puritan neighbors. They believed good works were necessary for salvation. Hutchinson believed that only faith was necessary. She also believed that God revealed himself to people without the help of the clergy. Community leaders viewed Hutchinson as a threat. She was found guilty of heresy in 1637, and told to leave the colony.
Hutchinson and her family moved first to Rhode Island. After her husband’s death in 1642, she settled near present-day Pelham Bay on Long Island Sound. In 1643, Hutchinson, all her children except one, and all her servants were killed in an attack perpetrated by Native Americans. Her death was regarded by some in Massachusetts Bay as evidence of divine judgment.
Source: Anne Hutchinson. Wikipedia.
Ann Lee and the Shakers
Ann Lee , also Mother Ann Lee , born February 29, 1736 in Manchester , England , died September 8, 1784 in Watervliet , Albany County , New York , was the spiritual leader of shakers and was also regarded as a prophet in the movement.
Ann Lee was a daughter of a blacksmith from Manchester and was abandoned against her will with a blacksmith. After four births where all children died, Ann Lee joined the shakers in 1758. Ann Lee later became the Shaker’s spiritual leader and prophet who claimed she had divine revelation. The movement’s meetings became increasingly lively and loud, which led to the detention of Ann Lee for crimes against the Sabbath peace. After serving the punishment, Ann Lee received a number of Christ Visions. She interpreted these as indicating that she was a new incarnation of Christ and that she represented the feminine aspect of God. Ann Lee was declared immortal with a new revelation of Christ, and within the movement she was regarded as if God was manifest through her in the same way as through Jesus .
Shakers were subjected to religious persecution and Ann Lee emigrated in 1874 with eight other members to the United States, to the current Watervliet, New York. From the beginning, “Mother Ann”, as she started to be called, had difficulty recruiting members, but by her death in 1784, the number of shakers reached about 100 people.
Source: Ann Lee, Wikipedia.
Elizabeth Ann Seton
Foundress and first superior of the Sisters of Charity in the United States, b. in New York City, 28 Aug., 1774; d. at Emmitsburg, Maryland, 4 Jan., 1821.
Her father, Dr. Richard Bayley, was the first professor of anatomy at Columbia College. Her mother, Catherine Charlton, daughter of an Anglican minister of Staten Island, N.Y., died when Elizabeth was three yeas old, leaving two other young daughters. The father married again. Elizabeth always showed great affection for her stepmother, who was a devout Anglican, and for her stepbrothers and sisters. Her education was chiefly conducted by her father. She read industriously, her notebooks indicating a special interest in religious and historical subjects. She was very religious, wore a small crucifix around her neck, and took great delight in reading the Scriptures, especially the Psalms, a practice she retained until her death.
She was married on 25 Jan., 1794, in St. Paul’s Church, New York, to William Magee Seton, of that city. In her sister-in-law, Rebecca Seton, she found the “friend of her soul”, and as they went about on missions of mercy they were called the “Protestant Sisters of Charity”. Business troubles culminated on the death of her father-in-law in 1798. Elizabeth and her husband presided over the large orphaned family. In 1803 Mr. Seton’s health required a sea voyage; he started with his wife and eldest daughter for Leghorn, where the Filicchi brothers, business friends of the Seton firm, resided. The other children, William, Richard, Rebecca, and Catherine, were left to the care of Rebecca Seton.
From a journal which Mrs. Seton kept during her travels we learn of her effort to sustain the spirits of her husband during the voyage, followed by a long detention in quarantine, until his death at Pisa (27 Dec., 1803). She and her daughter remained for some time with the Filicchi families. Delayed by her daughter’s illness and then by her own, she sailed for home accompanied by Antonio Filicchi, and reached New York on 3 June, 1804. Her sister-in-law, Rebecca, died in July. A time of great spiritual perplexity began for Mrs. Seton. On Ash Wednesday, 14 March, 1805, she was received into the Catholic Church. She well understood the storm that her conversion would raise among her Protestant relatives and friends. She joined an English Catholic gentleman named White, who, with his wife, was opening a school for boys in the suburbs of New York, but the widely circulated report that this was a proselytizing scheme forced the school to close.
A few faithful friends arranged for Mrs. Seton to open a boarding-house for some of the boys of a Protestant school. Ultimately, Mrs. Seton’s boarding-house for boys had to be given up. Her sons had been sent by the Filicchis to Georgetown College. She hoped to find a refuge in some convent in Canada, where her teaching would support her three daughters. Bishop Carroll did not approve, so she relinquished this plan. Father Dubourg, S. S., from St. Mary’s Seminary, Baltimore, met her in New York, and suggested opening in Baltimore a school for girls. After a long delay, she and her daughters reached Baltimore in 1808. Her boys were brought there to St. Mary’s College, and she opened a school next to the chapel of St. Mary’s Seminary and was delighted with the opportunities for the practice of her religion. The convent life for which she had longed ever since her stay in Italy now seemed less impracticable. Her life was that of a religious, and her quaint costume was fashioned after one worn by certain nuns in Italy. Cecilia Conway of Philadelphia, who had contemplated going to Europe to fulfill her religious vocation, joined her; soon other postulants arrived, while the little school had all the pupils it could accommodate.
Mr. Cooper, a Virginian convert and seminarian, offered $10,000 to found an institution for teaching poor children. A farm was bought half a mile from the village of Emmitsburg and two miles from Mt. St. Mary’s College. Meanwhile Cecilia Seton and her sister Harriet came to Mrs. Seton in Baltimore. As a preliminary to the formation of the new community, Mrs. Seton took vows privately before Archbishop Carroll and her daughter Anna. In June, 1808, the community was transferred to Emmitsburg to take charge of the new institution. The rule, however, with some modifications, was approved by Archbishop Carroll in Jan., 1812, and adopted. Mrs. Seton was elected superior. Many joined the community. Mother Seton and the eighteen sisters made their vows on 19 July, 1813. The school for the daughters of the well-to-do prospered and enabled the sisters to do much work among the poor. In 1814 the sisters were given charge of an orphan asylum in Philadelphia; in 1817 they were sent to New York.
Mother Seton had great facility in writing. She left copious diaries and correspondence. The third time she was elected mother (1819) she protested that it was the election of the dead, but she lived for two years. In 1880 Cardinal Gibbons (then Archbishop) urged the steps be taken toward her canonization. The result of the official inquiries in the cause of Mother Seton, held in Baltimore during several years, were brought to Rome by special messenger, and placed in the hands of the postulator of the cause on 7 June, 1911. She was canonized as a Saint in 1975.
Source: Elizabeth Ann Seton. Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913.
Summary
Women played a prominent role in a number of Christian religious denominations in early American history. In almost every denomination, there were more female church members than male church members. In spite of the fact that most denominations prohibited women from becoming ministers or priests, women founded a number of religious orders, institutions, and denominations.
Anne Hutchinson defied the male leaders of the Puritan community in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. She claimed that she received direct revelations from God and was exiled from the colony and excommunicated. Ann Lee founded a utopian religious sect known as the Shakers, who practiced strict celibacy. Elizabeth Ann Seton founded the first congregation of religious sisters in the United States and was the first American woman to be canonized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. Ellen Gould Harmon White founded the Seventh Day Adventist movement, which preached that the Second Coming was near and observed the Sabbath on Saturday.
