Moravians came to Pennsylvania in 1740 as missionaries to the Indians and as members of the Moravian Church were required to write an autobiography summing up their lives. This work is a collection of 18th-century Moravian spiritual narratives written by women.

The story of the ordination of the Reverend Betty Bone Schiess - one of the first women priests in the Episcopal church. Reverend Betty Bone Schiess' engagingly written memoir is a valuable contribution to the scholarship of religious study as well as to feminist study and to legal scholarship, particularly on equal rights issues. Schiess draws parallels throughout her work to earlier efforts of the suffragettes and abolitionists of Seneca Falls.

Compelling, in-depth analysis of Shaker villages that sheds light on how communal attitudes helped to liberate Shaker women. Drawing on archival material from Shaker members, observers, and apostates, noted historian Suzanne R. Thurman offers a scholarly yet eminently readable study of life in two of the oldest, most prominent American Shaker villages: the Harvard and Shirley communities of Massachusetts. Even as she delves into the complex fabric of Shaker social life, Thurman challenges traditional perceptions of gender roles within the community. Shaker spiritual and social ethics, she...

A rare example of an African American woman writing in the early nineteenth century. This new edition places Sarah Mix (1832-1884) in the context of American religious history, and shows her influence on the emerging faith healing movement and other female healing evangelists, including Carrie Judd Montgomery and Maria Woodworth-Etter. The divine healing movement, also known as faith healing or faith cure was a significant phenomenon in American religion and culture in the late nineteenth century. More importantly, during this period of the divine healing movement, women occupied a central...

Enlightening biography of an early feminist and religious entrepreneur who championed the innate spirituality of women. Emma Curtis Hopkins led a life of extraordinary diversity and achievement. Here at last is a study that salutes her remarkable life as it explores the route by which she melded spiritual healing, metaphysical idealism, and exotic philosophies into multiple careers of unsurpassed dynamic. As a charismatic teacher, Hopkins instructed or ordained every prominent New Thought leader who founded a major denomination of the movement's churches. Her considerable talents as a mystic...

Drawing on archival material from Shaker members, observers, and apostates, noted historian Suzanne R. Thurman offers a scholarly yet eminently readable study of life in two of the oldest, most prominent American Shaker villages: the Harvard and Shirley communities of massachusetts. Even as she delves into the complex fabric of Shaker social life, Thurman challenges traditional perceptions of gender roles within the community. Shaker spiritual and social ethics, she points out, strongly favored women. Celibacy and an androgynous theology, for instance, allowed androgynous social roles to...