Thesis
Lowered expectations: Mary Walker and the disappointments of mission life, 1839-1848
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2015
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/101975
Abstract
Mary Richardson Walker served as a mission wife at the Tshimakain mission in the Oregon Territory from 1839-1848. While Mary desired to prioritize her role as a mission laborer above her domestic duties, cultural convention and the dictates of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) meant that caring for her own children as well as other children at the mission and tending to household jobs took precedence in Mary's life. She recorded her experiences at the mission in her personal diaries and through correspondence with family and friends. Mary's life tells the story of what it was like to be a missionary woman in the American West in the nineteenth century, but her diaries suggest she had little desire to adhere to prescribed mission roles. The ABCFM allowed women to participate in the mission because they promised to support their husbands" full fledged missionaries" by taking care of the household and raising children. Women also promised to provide a positive example of good Christian womanhood for "heathen" populations to emulate. The balance between her domestic duties and maintaining the status of perfect Christian woman was an impossible task. Finally, she and her fellow mission laborers did nothing to understand the native culture they were there to change, which ultimately caused friction and ended the mission work with violence. Mary Walker's diaries gave insight into lives and experiences of mission wives in the Pacific Northwest in the first half of the nineteenth century.
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Details
- Title
- Lowered expectations
- Creators
- Joni Ray Ford
- Contributors
- Jennifer Thigpen (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- History, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; [Pullman, Washington] :
- Identifiers
- 99900525125501842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis