Women, Religion, and Professional Communication: Communication Design for the Female Relief Society, 1842--1920

Abstract

My archival research internship experience with a women's discourses project suggests that professional documentation is a vital part of building and maintaining organizations. The historical sources I examined from a religious institution's women's organization displayed a variety of professional communication genres, all of them working to make the larger organization successful and functional. Organizational communication worked to simultaneously promote women's industrial independence while tying women to the larger organization by promoting identities for participating women. These forms of communication ultimately united and disciplined the women of the organization, allowing them to share religious best practices, domestic techniques, and community values with one another. There is much work to be done on the history of professional communication in archives, including how it has been used to design religious organizations.