Despite their persistent presence on street corners and in churches, camp meetings, and public halls across the nation, the significant contribution of women evangelists to American religious life, past and present, has not been seriously considered. Simply put, women evangelists are a forgotten history. They are notably absent from histories of American evangelism, which routinely begin with Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) and then continue the male trajectory through each generation, from Charles Finney (1792-1875) to Dwight Moody (1837-1899) to Billy Sunday (1862-1935), to Billy Graham (1918 - ). One rationale for this well-worn path was suggested by a biographer of Billy Sunday; "But in each generation there were the special men of God, the towering religious figures around whom masses of people rallied."
This myopic view of evangelism ignores the reality that during the lifetime of each “special” man, there were significant numbers of women evangelists.
This website is dedicated to bringing to light the enormous impact of women evangelists in shaping American religious life from the nation’s infancy to the present. It features brief profiles of evangelists, a selective bibliography of secondary sources, and links to related sites, including my book on Amazon, titled Turn the Pulpit Loose: Two Centuries of American Women Evangelists.
Review by Maxine Walker, Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego, CA.
"Pope-Levison's recovery of the "forgotten history" of eighteen women in American religious life knits together, not only the vivid narratives written by the women themselves, but also essential primary and secondary sources to further this retrieval. Pope-Levison's contributions are primarily three-fold: she offers narratives for increased understanding of the social and cultural influences that shaped these women; her work for a new generation of feminist historians and theologians is informative and suggestive; and, the narratives themselves highlight ongoing issues connected with women in ministry.
Priscilla Pope-Levison's anthology is a must read for young feminists and gender-studies scholars, clergy and laity likewise, as they survey the landscape of contemporary women in ministry. Women preaching and their ordination still remain contentious locally and globally, and Pope-Levison's contribution shows the necessity for exploring the meaning and nature of the Christian tradition in shaping present practice. Denominational affiliation or communities of believers whose perspectives on women evangelists are formed by an authoritative past will learn from Pope-Levison's work that stories matter as well as texts. Pope-Levison is to be highly commended for opening all of this up, both for examination and testing."