| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 193 words from this article are provided below; about 395 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

"A Looking-Glass for Ladies": American Protestant Women and the Orient in the Nineteenth Century. By Lisa Joy Pruitt. (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2005. xvi, 247 pp. Paper, $25.00, ISBN 0-86554-888-9.)

For those who are interested in the origins of women's involvement in the U.S. foreign mission enterprise, Lisa Joy Pruitt provides a wealth of information on the topic. Beginning with the organizing of missionary societies among women in the 1790s, Pruitt traces the expansion of women's support of foreign missions to the postbellum period, when full-fledged women's foreign missionary societies emerged on a denominational basis. In so doing, Pruitt emphasizes the importance of the theme of the degraded womanhood in the Orient, as exemplified in the practices of sati and child marriage in India or footbinding in China, in popular evangelical literature throughout the period and beyond. Her contention is that such degraded womanhood made up the core of "evangelical Orientalism," through which Christian (American or English) women saw themselves as superior to the Oriental other. According to Pruitt, this confidence, more than anything else, motivated the women to give generously their money, labor, and sometimes even their lives.

. . .

There are about 395 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.