Gertrude Howe | |
---|---|
![]() Gertrude Howe, from her 1916 passport application | |
Born | September 13, 1846 Poughkeepsie, New York, U.S. |
Died | December 29, 1928 (aged 82) Nanchang, China |
Occupation | Methodist missionary educator in China |
Relatives | Ida Kahn (adopted daughter) |
Gertrude Howe (September 13, 1846 – December 29, 1928) was an American Methodist missionary educator and translator, based in China from 1872 until her death there in 1928.
Early life and education
[edit]Howe was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, the daughter of Isaac Howe and Elizabeth Howe. Her family were Quakers and active in abolition work.[1] She attended the Michigan Agricultural College in 1870 and 1871, and the University of Michigan in 1871.[2] She graduated from Michigan State Normal School in 1872.[3]
Career
[edit]![Three women standing side by side; Ida Kahn is a middle-aged Chinese woman wearing a silk tunic; Gertrude Howe is an older white woman wearing a silk jacket; Li Bi Cu is a middle-aged Chinese woman wearing a light-colored jacket](Https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/03/IdaKahnGertrudeHoweLiBiCu1919.png/220px-IdaKahnGertrudeHoweLiBiCu1919.png)
In her teens, Howe taught school in Lansing, Michigan, and was appointed principal of a primary school when she was 20 years old. In 1872, Howe went to Kiukiang (Jiujiang) in China,[4] as a missionary under the auspices of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.[5] She and medical missionary Lucy H. Hoag founded a girls' high school in 1873, requiring students to have unbound feet to enroll.[6] She adopted and raised four Chinese daughters,[4][7] including Kang Cheng, known as Ida Kahn.[8][9] She taught her daughters English, and mentored several other Chinese students who continued their educations in the United States,[10][11] including Mary Stone,[12] Phebe Stone, and Ilien Tang.[13][14][15] She also assisted later women missionaries in China, including Welthy Honsinger Fisher.[16] "While she spared no pains in laying broad educational foundations," according to a biographical pamphlet for church use, "she never lost sight of character-making, to which she gave the prominent place."[4]
Howe moved to Chungking in 1883, and opened another girls' school; but her new school was destroyed within a few years, and she returned to Kiukiang. She translated a Methodist hymnal, and a history of the Reformation, for her students to use.[13] She spoke about her work in the United States during her visits, including in Detroit in 1893,[17] in Pittsburgh in 1909,[18] in Brookline in 1919,[19] and in Lansing in 1920.[20]
Howe's sister, Delia, joined her work in China from 1879 to 1882.[21] Delia Howe became a physician in Detroit.[22]
Personal life
[edit]Howe lived in Nanchang with Ida Kahn in her later years. She died there in 1928, after years of declining heatlh, at the age of 82.[23][24] Kahn wrote an English-language obituary of Howe, listing out her daughters Ida, Julia, Fannie, and Belle,[4] and grandchildren, and detailing the specifics of her funeral.[7]
References
[edit]- ^ Pomfret, John (2016-11-29). The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present. Macmillan. p. 102. ISBN 978-0-8050-9250-9.
- ^ "University of Michigan Graduates in China". Detroit Free Press. 1900-07-08. p. 28. Retrieved 2023-11-03 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Badgley-Malone, Megan. "The First Ten Women at M.A.C.: Gertrude Howe (1846-1928)" Archives@MSU (November 9, 2020).
- ^ a b c d Baker, Frances J. Gertrude Howe: Thirty-one years a missionary in China. Columbia University Libraries; a pamphlet biography. Boston: Woman's Foreign Missionary Society – via Internet Archive.
- ^ Wheeler, Mary Sparkes (1881). First Decade of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church: With Sketches of Its Missionaries. Phillips & Hunt. pp. 128–131.
- ^ Baker, Franc (1887). Historical Sketches of the Northwestern Branch of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Jameson & Morse, printers. pp. 75–76.
- ^ a b Karl, Rebecca E.; Zarrow, Peter (2020-03-23). Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period: Political and Cultural Change in Late Qing China. Brill. pp. 192, 204–207. ISBN 978-1-68417-374-7.
- ^ Shemo, Connie A. (2010-03-19), So Thoroughly American Gertrude Howe, Kang Cheng, and Cultural Imperialism in the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, 1872–1931, Duke University Press, pp. 117–140, doi:10.1515/9780822392590-007, ISBN 978-0-8223-9259-0, retrieved 2023-11-03
- ^ Robert, Dana Lee (1996). American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and Practice. Mercer University Press. pp. 185–186. ISBN 978-0-86554-549-6.
- ^ "Cosmopolitan Cullings". Pittsburg Dispatch. 1892-09-29. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-11-03 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Chin, Carol C. (2003). "Beneficent Imperialists: American Women Missionaries in China at the Turn of the Twentieth Century". Diplomatic History. 27 (3): 327–352. ISSN 0145-2096. JSTOR 24914416.
- ^ Ma, Li (2021-01-28). Christian Women and Modern China: Recovering a Women's History of Chinese Protestantism. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 3, 7–8. ISBN 978-1-7936-3157-2.
- ^ a b Robert, Dana L. (1998). "Gertrude Howe (1847-1928)". The United Methodist Church. Retrieved 2023-11-03.
- ^ Ye, Weili (1994). ""Nü Liuxuesheng": The Story of American-Educated Chinese Women, 1880s-1920s". Modern China. 20 (3): 315–346. ISSN 0097-7004. JSTOR 189202.
- ^ Gamewell, Mary Ninde (October 14, 1911). "Two of China's 'Little Women'". The Junior Herald. 22: 1306–1307.
- ^ Fisher, Welthy Honsinger (1962). To Light a Candle. Drew University and the General Commission of Archives and History for the United Methodist Church. McGraw Hill.
- ^ "Foreign Mission Work". Grand Rapids Herald. 1893-10-13. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-11-03 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Religious and Charitable". The Pittsburgh Press. 1909-03-27. p. 9. Retrieved 2023-11-03 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Oriental Methodists at Hallowed Spot". The Anaconda Standard. 1919-11-13. p. 12. Retrieved 2023-11-03 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Church Calendar". Lansing State Journal. 1920-02-17. p. 10. Retrieved 2023-11-03 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Dr. Howe, Former Lansingite, Dies". Lansing State Journal. 1922-04-22. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-11-03 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Detroit Missionary at Kiu Kiang; Gertrude Howe, sister of Dr. Howe, of this City". Detroit Free Press. 1900-07-20. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-11-03 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Ward, David; Chen, Eugene (2017). "The University of Michigan in China". Maize Books. doi:10.3998/mpub.9885197. ISBN 9781607854272.
- ^ "Untitled news item". Detroit Free Press. 1929-02-03. p. 16. Retrieved 2023-11-03 – via Newspapers.com.
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