Silenced

Abstract

In Silenced: The Forgotten Story of Progressive Era Free Methodist Women, Christy Mesaros-Winckles delves into the gender debates within the Free Methodist Church of North America during the Progressive Era (1890-1920). This interdisciplinary work draws on narrative research and gender studies to reconstruct the lives of forgotten women who served as Free Methodist evangelists and deacons, examining their writings and speeches to illustrate how they promoted and defended their ministries. Mesaros-Winckles argues that the history of Free Methodist women is a microcosm of the struggle for recognition and acceptance faced by women across numerous evangelical traditions, especially amidst rising fundamentalism at the turn of the twentieth century. This book provides an important contribution to the fields of American history, theology, media studies, and gender studies, and will also be of interest to rhetorical history and communication theory scholars.