Intersectional Studies of Early American Women and Christianity

Adopting the perspective of women radically alters the broad contours of religious history. Traditional academic narratives of the major turning points in American religious history include Puritan declension, the modern shift toward secularism, and the feminization of religion. Studies of Puritanism offer one powerful example of how religious history has changed through the careful examination of women's experiences. The discussion of early Puritan women frequently falls into the language of the Puritans themselves, focusing on their religiosity and sense of ideal womanhood, which was essentially and inextricably white. As nineteenth‐century women became associated with innate piety, women's access to power in civic groups was inevitably tied to their religiosity. Further, the term “feminization” implies that women and feminine modes of piety took over Christianity, but the masculine association with ministerial leadership flourished alongside the abundance of women converts.