T.E. Ruth (1875-1956: preacher and controversialist)

Abstract

missionary outreach. First appointed to Burma in 1816 as part of the American Baptist Judson mission, she concluded her overseas service at Digah, a village in the Patna District of Bihar Province of Northeast India. For a decade, self-supported and entrepreneurial, she administered a network of girl’s and boy’s schools. By virtue of her short-term marriage to Joshua Rowe (1782–1823), she became associated from 1816 with the Baptist Missionary Society in London. She is a figure of interest to women’s education, missionary promotion, women’s emancipation, and interfaith work. Trulson’s highly readable narrative is based mainly upon 19 century secondary sources plus original letters found in the Angus Library BMS Archives and microfilm materials from the American Baptist Historical Society. Absent from the end notes are references to the original records of the Haverhill (MA) Baptist Church, and the Sansom Street Baptist Church in Philadelphia, both of which survive. Also absent are important recent sources on the Judson wives, William White, Henry Holcomb, and the numerous encyclopedia and dictionary articles pertaining to women in Christian missions (indeed Charlotte herself). ‘Evidence’ is often taken from published missionary accounts, like The Missionary Jubilee. Greater use of primary sources would have enhanced the analytic value of the narrative, for instance, the cultural meaning of early American and English mission outreach, the suppression of women candidates for many decades, currently under scrutiny, and interfaith issues between early Indian Christianity and Hinduism and Islam. The book is handsomely produced with an attractive dust cover. There are numerous useful illustrations. The text contains typographical errors needing more careful editing and the index should have been more analytical. The book is recommended for all students of missions, women’s studies, and introductory American Baptist biography.