Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845 » (1st Edition)

Profiles the women preachers—white and African-American—who struggled to forge an enduring tradition of female religious leadership in early America

Library Journal

In this well-documented and readable history of a neglected group, Brekus (American religious history, Univ. of Chicago) examines the rise and decline of female preachers among Evangelical churches from 1740 to 1845, with an epilog discussing late-19th-century developments. Brekus follows female evangelism through 18th-century revivals and the American Revolution to its rise during the 1820s. She then covers the growing restrictions on female preaching that started to appear in the 1830s and its brief resurgence among the Millerites. Brekus is especially interested in how these women understood their own conversion, calls to preach, pulpit style, theology, and defense of female preaching within the context of their own times and religious beliefs. Recommended for academic and public libraries.--C. Robert Nixon, Lafayette, IN