ABSTRACT

In its years of rapid expansion, female moral reform took root in a variety of settings and amongst a variety of people far wider than New England villages and Congregationalists, suggesting that broader forces were at work promoting this spread than the ecclesiastical and religious dynamics identified in the last chapter. First of all, besides the two parent organizations, many auxiliaries labored in the northern cities. A vigorous group of African-American women, for example, attached to the African Methodist Zion Church, the first black congregation to be organized in New York City, formed an auxiliary as early as 1835. With encouragement from none other than the Rev. John R. McDowall himself and the Rev. Joshua Leavitt, then editor of the New York Evangelist, the auxiliary quickly grew to 130 members. By 1837 these women were contemplating hiring their own missionary to the African-American community in the city, although “the low state of our pecuniary means” prevented it. 1