Presbyterian Women in America: Two Centuries of a Quest for Status

(Hardback, 2nd edition)

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This second edition of Boyd and Brackenridge's acclaimed history of Presbyterian women in America traces women's affiliation with Presbyterianism for more than two centuriesfrom 1789 to the present. In the first century after the establishment of the General Assembly, churchmen expected females to be silent, subordinate, and submissive in the church; ordination was forbidden. However, women in the 19th century organized into local groups devoted to mission and Christian education projects. This fascinating historical account traces the evolvement of these groups into the women's boards of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that influenced women's current equal role in the pulpits, sessions, and courts of the church. Boyd and Brackenridge raise important issues concerning diversity, sustenance of community, and ordinationissues that will affect women's position in the church in the 21st century.

Author Bio

LOIS A. BOYD is Assistant to the Vice President for Academic Affairs of Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Formerly, she served as director and editor of Trinity University Press. She is the author of a booklength checklist Religion in Contemporary Fiction and co-author of Presbyterians and Pensions: A History of the Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). R. DOUGLAS BRACKENRIDGE is Professor of Religion at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. He has published widely in the field of American religious history with a special interest in Presbyterian institutional history and biography. His most recent book with Lois A. Boyd is Presbyterians and Pensions: A History of the Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).