3.1 3.2 women's activities prior to 1880  (Page 3/4)

In other parts of the state sewing groups and aid societies met with more resistance, particularly in East Texas. Disapproval formed on the general basis of their presence representing "innovation" and for the specific cause that women were overstepping their God-given boundaries. Mrs. Pyle, the daughter of a minister, gave a patronizing explanation of the situation:

Even the more enlightened of [the ministers and leading Baptists] were shy of women's societies. They were not sure that women knew how to carry on alone, not realizing their women had wonderful training in managing their homes, their children, and even their husbands, though the poor dears knew it not. Mrs. W. J. J. Smith, p. 27.

The General Association felt strongly enough on the issue to amend its constitution in 1869 to restrict membership to males after three women had been seated by making the requisite $5.00 contribution.

Resistance to a threat often forms only after that threat is real and its direction irreversible. Such was the case with the disapproval that arose in the 1870s over women's expanded role in church and society. That expansion, however, had become a fact with the Civil War. J. M. Carroll dated the change from that period, claiming that "[d]uring the war period our women had to act as men for our people. No historian will ever be able to tell how gloriously this was done by our brave Texas women." Carroll, p. 312. Church historian W. W. Sweet also credited the impact of that war with a general rise in lay representation in American churches, including women's groups. William Warren Sweet, The Story of Religion in America (New York: Harper&Bros., 1930), p. 480. Not that the Baptist church in Texas was sufficiently cohesive and numerous or the women confident and energetic enough to assert themselves immediately. Re-resistance to women's organizing, even to fill a traditional supportive role, continued in Texas until the 1890s and in the SBC well into the twentieth century. It was kept alive largely by influential leaders who were products of pre-Civil War society, and it was successful insofar as deference for those men kept women from public roles, forced them to draw support mainly from other women, and curtailed activity in places where those leaders exercised power. But, however slowly and circumspectly, women gathered and formed organizations, outlining new avenues of religious service for themselves.

With hindsight, the conditions for Baptist women's rise appear clearcut and inevitable. During the Civil War and on the frontier, women had proven to themselves that they could function in areas where they had previously been led to believe they were weak or deficient. Texas Baptist churches were needy, having been inactivated and demoralized by the war and Reconstruction. Nationally, an interest in missions, spearheaded by lay groups, was spreading through all Protestant denominations. Secular developments, such as communication and transportation networks, facilitated interaction and organizational growth. In short, the churches needed women's activity and support too badly to suppress them long, and women and missions were such a congenial combination that once they were linked, the success of both women's organizations and the mission enterprise seemed guaranteed.