This group biography follows three generations of ministers' daughters and wives in a famed American Unitarian family. Shifting the focus from pulpit to parsonage, and from sermon to whispered secrets, Cynthia Tucker humanizes the Eliots and their religious tradition and lifts up a largely neglected female vocation. Spanning 150 years from the early 19th century forward, the narrative shapes itself into a series of stories. Each of six chapters takes up a different woman's defining experience, from the deaths of numerous children and the anguish of infertility to the suffocation of small parish life with its chronic loneliness, doubt, and resentment. One woman confides in a rare close friend, another in the anonymous readers of magazines that publish her poems. A third escapes from an ill-fitting role by succumbing to neurasthenia, leaving one debilitating condition for another. The matriarch's granddaughters script larger lives, bypassing marriage and churchly employment to follow their hearts into same-sex relationships, and major careers in public health and preschool education. In two concluding chapters, Tucker enlarges the frame to bring in the regular parish women who collectively give voice to issues the ministers' kin must keep to themselves. All of the stories are linked by the women's continuing battles to make themselves heard over clerical wisdom that contradicts their reality.

No Silent Witness: The Eliot Parsonage Women and Their Unitarian World (Religion in America)

Biographies & Memoirs

Tucker, Cynthia Grant

Community & Culture

Oxford University Press

"Prophetic Sisterhood" documents the struggles of a courageous group of nineteenth-century women to find a place in the liberal denominations of American religion. They left the security of their homes and endured great hardships in fulfillment of their desire to minister to congregations on the western frontier. Their questioning of traditional ministerial roles led to the creation of a domestic ministry whose scope extended far beyond the pulpit to suffrage, social settlements, and the peace movement. But because they were women, they failed to gain institutional acceptance. "In "Prophetic Sisterhood", the conspiracy of forgetfulness around women in ministry is challenged. The book contains historical substance, readable stories, and methodological insights." - Barbara Brown Zikmund. "Cynthia Tucker's "Prophetic Sisterhood" fills a major gap in the study of women and religion in America. It is invaluable as the only documentation of a support system of female ordained ministers in the nineteenth century." - Rosemary Keller.

Prophetic Sisterhood: Liberal Women Ministers of the Frontier, 1880-1930

Religion & Spirituality

Christian Books & Bibles

Indiana University Press

A powerful, usable history of women who broke through the boundaries of gender to enter the ordained ministry in the late 19th century.

History

Historical Study & Educational Resources

iUniverse

Beacon Pr

A Woman's Ministry: Mary Collson's Search for Reform As a Unitarian Minister : A Hull House Social Worker, and a Christian Science Practitioner (American Civilization)

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Temple Univ Pr

Remaining productive in spite of a disability or terminal illness is a challenge. In Spirited Threads, Patricia Roberts Cline speaks to us in her last years about how her passion for creating art sustained her through her struggles. Cline tells her story through journals, which were assembled and edited by her close friends and teacher, Cynthia Grant Tucker. Twenty-four quilt images appear in full color and include her studio writings as well as forty-six black and white sketches and photos of family and friends. Studio notes provide an inside qlimpse into the creative process and Ms. Clines philosophy.

Spirited Threads : A Fabric Artist's Passion for Life : The Art and Writings of Patricia Cline

Arts & Literature

Sibyl Pubns

Shifting the center of gravity from pulpits to parsonages, and from confident sermons to whispered doubts, this family narrative humanizes the Eliot saints, demystifies their liberal religion, and lifts up the largely unsung female vocation of practical ministry.   Spanning 150 years from the early 19th century forward, the narrative probes the women&rsquo;s defining experiences: the deaths of numerous children, the anguish of infertility, persistent financial worries, and the juggling of the often competing demands that parishes make on first ladies.   Here, too, we see the matriarch&rsquo;s granddaughters scripting larger lives as they skirt traditional marriage and women&rsquo;s usual roles in the church. They follow their hearts into same-sex unions and blaze new trails as they carve out careers in public health service and preschool education.   These stories are linked by the women&rsquo;s continuing battles to speak and make themselves heard over the thundering clerical wisdom that contradicts their reality. A wealth of photographs, genealogical charts, and a family roster deepen the reader&rsquo;s engagement with this ambitious biography.

No Silent Witness: The Eliot Parsonage Women and Their Liberal Religious World

Historical

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Books by Tucker, Cynthia Grant