Zachary Bodnar, CLA Archivist
The role of women in Congregational benevolent societies cannot be understated.
While processing church records, it is very common to find that a significant portion of the records are devoted to the work of women. The "Ladies Sewing Circle" and "Women’s Benevolent Society" records are a common folder label across many churches, regardless of time and geography. These local stories are important to preserve. The CLA has done much to make these records accessible, but they are only part of the story we have to share.
Work has recently begun to reprocess and make fully accessible the records of the Massachusetts Women’s Home Missionary Union (MWHMU). This organization was formed on November 4, 1879, a stone’s throw away from 14 Beacon in the vestry of the Park Street Church. By 1881, the Woman’s Home Missionary Society was formally chartered “for the purpose of enlisting all the women of the Congregational churches in prayer and efforts for home missions.”
In the first year, the group raised more than $2,500, focusing on the educational and physical needs of children. Ten years later, the group raised almost $30,000.
The name of the organization changed in 1924 to the Massachusetts Women’s Home Missionary Union. The name stuck, and the MWHMU still operates today, now affiliated with the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ.
This collection came to the CLA in multiple parts. The first deposit was in 1982. The records did not need to travel far, as the MWHMU’s office was on the fifth floor of Congregational House at 14 Beacon Street. Though the MWHMU’s office moved to the Conference Center in Framingham between 1982 and 1995, some records had remained at Congregational House, and these became the source of a second major deposit. The records were initially processed in 1996.
But that is not where this story ends. In January 2025, we began processing a record book for the Suffolk Alliance of the Women's Home Missionary Society and quickly discovered that this single volume was part of the much larger MWHMU records collection. A new project to reprocess this collection as a whole has begun, and a finding aid is forthcoming.
The collection holds many stories worth sharing. Much of the collection is financial in nature, but between spreadsheets and investment reports, you can find the stories of individual funds and the ways they helped people throughout the 110 years of the organization's documented history.
For example, the records of the Edith Babcock Travis Memorial Fund tell the stories of women whose educational ambitions were supported by the MWHMU, while the records of the Golden Anniversary Fund show the MWHMU's work to raise money for the Schauffler Missionary Training School and Northland College. And the copious correspondence related to bequests kept by the organization tells the stories of how, and importantly why, women have supported the MWHMU for more than a century.
We are excited to be reprocessing this incredible collection this month. By the end of this project, more people will be able to discover the untold stories of women in Congregational benevolent work.