ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief overview of the development of women's "civilizing" work. It suggests that the strategies adopted for women's work played an important part in overcoming early opposition to the Canadian missionary presence in Central India and a significant ongoing role in maintaining the goodwill of both the local Indian and British communities. In opting to establish missionary work in India, the Presbyterian Church in Canada took it for granted that it would thereby be playing a welcome role in Britain's imperial enterprise. Women's work before 1885 fell largely into two categories: zenana visiting and the teaching or supervising of mission schools. Women's medical work in Indore proved to be an open sesame to other stations and opportunities. With the upsurge in Indian nationalism in the early years of the twentieth century, the pattern of caution towards men's work became more pronounced among imperial authorities in Central India.
