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.
Keywords: woman, religion, gender, culture, class, race, Sino-American relations, American Episcopal Church