Call Number:

54

Repository:

Historical Society of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church

Extent:

2.75 linear feet

Language:

English

Date:

1940-1973 (bulk) and 1883-1973 (inclusive)

Creator:

Woman's Society of Christian Service of the Philadelphia Conference of the Methodist Church

Abstract:

The Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Philadelphia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in 1883, a few years after the national equivalent was formed. Its local programs included immigrant homes, boarding homes for women, Vacation Bible School, and a clinic. After the 1939 merger that resulted in the new corporation of the Methodist Church, the Society was folded into the Woman's Society of Christian Service. The Woman's Society of Christian Service was merged into the United Methodist Women in 1972. The Woman's Society of Christian Service of the Philadelphia Conference of the Methodist Church records, 1883-1973 (bulk 1940-1973), include minutes, ledgers and other financial documents, a scrapbook, newsletters, yearbooks, and annual reports of several foreign and domestic missionary groups.

The Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church was formed in 1880 (11 years after the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society), although it was not until a decade later that the Society was recognized by the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It ran industrial homes for people of various races, training schools for missionaries and deaconesses, orphanages, nursery schools, religious schools, retirement homes for missionaries, visiting nurse programs, and other projects.

The Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Philadelphia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized during the 1883 session of the Philadelphia Annual Conference and formally chartered in 1892. According to its charter, its purpose was "carrying on Missionary Work among the destitute and needy, and to establish and maintain one or more Deaconess Homes." The local Woman's Home Missionary Service opened its first immigrant home near Philadelphia's steamship landing in 1889. By 1922, the Philadelphia Deaconess Home was the largest in the United States, with an attendance of about 95,000, 1,800 enrollees in Daily Vacation Bible School, and 4,000 clinic visitors. One of the Philadelphia Home Missionary Society's longest-running programs was an Esther Hall, a boarding home for women coming to Philadelphia for study or employment. Located at 20th and Mount Vernon Streets, it opened in 1925 and remained in operation until 1973.

In 1939, when the Methodist Episcopal Church; the Methodist Episcopal Church, South; and the Methodist Protestant Church merged to form the Methodist Church, the various women's groups of the three uniting churches including home and foreign missionary societies were joined, becoming the Woman's Society of Christian Service of the Methodist Church. After the Methodist Church's 1968 union with the Evangelical United Brethren Church, the women's organizations in the new United Methodist Church merged in 1972 to become the United Methodist Women.

Bibliography:

United Methodist Women. "Living the Legacy: The Continuing Journey of Women in Mission." 2002. Accessed August 26, 2014. http://prod.umwomen.org:88/about/history/timeline.

Woman's Home Missions, vol. XXXIX, no. 4 (April 1922). Accessed August 26, 2014. Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Church. http://books.google.com/books?id=dHbQAAAAMAAJ.

"Outline History of Esther Hall, Philadelphia" and Charter. Documents found in collection.

The collection includes: minutes (incomplete) 1919-1969; treasury ledgers and other financial documents, 1940-1970; Trust Fund ledgers, 1936-1955; annual reports of several foreign and domestic missionary groups, 1893-1940; scrapbook; newsletters; records of Esther Hall; and yearbooks, 1956-1973.