Mission Support

Deaconess Clara Carter distributing supplies for the Alaska mission field, c. 1910-1920.

The Episcopal Church's commitment to mission work was fundamental to its identity in its earliest iterations in the late-18th and early-19th centuries. With the creation of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society during the 1820 General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the Society was tasked with overseeing missionary activities in the United States and abroad, and began to send missionaries to regions around the world.

As an integral part of the Church, the women in parishes around the country enthusiastically joined in the missionary spirit. A report of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society in 1822 noted that, of eleven recently-established Church auxiliary societies, eight were specifically for women. These woman's auxiliary societies raised funds for mission work and sent supplies to missionaries, including clothes, books, and small comforts for the far-flung missionary home. The women made many of these items themselves and canvassed their communities for contributions.

These community efforts developed into essential gathering opportunities for women and offered leadership and organizational opportunities on a greater scale for those individuals previously restricted to the household sphere. Over time, these groups of women developed networks that stretched across the country and around the world.

"Will Our Women Work," an article published in Home and Abroad in May, 1870, written by Dr. Alvi Twing, a longtime advocate for increased roles for women within the church.

These women, traveling by boat to Alaska in 1909, faced significant challenges in reaching the remote mission fields.

Anne Cady, a trained stenographer, worked as an aide to Hudson Stuck at the Allakaket mission. Miss Cady is pictured here at the Church of St. John's in the Wilderness, c. 1900-1920.