COLBY, ABBY M.
(1848-1917). Education: Glenwood Ladies Seminary, Mount Holyoke College. Career: Missionary, Japan, 1879-1917; teacher, Plum Blossom Girls' School, Osaka, 1879-1914.
During the nineteenth century, missionary work was one of the few careers open to American women. By the 1860s many denominations had formed women's boards to direct the activity of single and married women serving abroad. Between 1810 and 1957'the Congregationalists sent 346 missionaries to Japan, roughly two thirds of whom were women. While seeking to reform Japanese society, some of them began to notice the inferior position of women within their own church and press for reforms. Abby Colby was one such reformer.
After attending Mount Holyoke, she taught and engaged in home missionary work. She was thirty-one when she applied to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions for an overseas appointment In 1873 the Meiji government of Japan had agreed officially to tolerate Christianity. Because of its temperate climate and high level of civilization, Japan was a particularly attractive mission post. Single women were popular as missionaries there because Japanese homes were often open to them, and they could work directly with native women and children.
Colby developed a strong attachment to the Japanese people, but she was repelled by the inferior position of Japanese women. They were regarded as their husbands' property and could be easily divorced supplanted by a concubine. Often their education was limited to domestic chores and the tea ceremony. Like other missionaries Abby Colby was active in teaching sewing classes, infant health-care, and prayer and Bible studies. But she also fought a private war against the abuse of women. She persuaded one convert not to marry at all, and she purchased back young girls who had been sold by their parents into prostitution. Capitalizing on the respect Japanese men accorded to Americans, even to American women, she urged them to hold their own women in higher regard.
While working to improve the condition of women in Japan, Abby Colby recognized that she was not regarded as an equal of the men in her church. Since women were normally denied advanced theological training, they occupied an inferior position in the ranks of the missionaries. Colby was annoyed when the church advertised for English teachers to come to Japan, offering fifty dollars a month for women, and seventy-five for men. She was gratified on another issue when in 1893 the board accepted women as equal voting members of its annual meeting. In letters home she advocated woman suffrage and equal pay for women, exemplifying the growing demand by Congregationalist and other women for an equal place in society.
More of a common laborer in the missionary field than a pioneer or leader, Abby Colby typifies one of the more attractive characteristics of the best missionaries-an ability to accept and understand many features of a foreign culture. Her early letters home from Japan are full of laments about flimsy houses, strange food, and outlandish dress. Years later she had accepted all this, and she made Japan her home.
Bibliography
A: Letters in the papers of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Houghton Library, Harvard.
B: Sandra C. Taylor, "Abby M. Colby: The Christian Response to Sexist Society," New England Quarterly, 52 (1979), 68-79.
During the nineteenth century, missionary work was one of the few careers open to American women. By the 1860s many denominations had formed women's boards to direct the activity of single and married women serving abroad. Between 1810 and 1957'the Congregationalists sent 346 missionaries to Japan, roughly two thirds of whom were women. While seeking to reform Japanese society, some of them began to notice the inferior position of women within their own church and press for reforms. Abby Colby was one such reformer.
After attending Mount Holyoke, she taught and engaged in home missionary work. She was thirty-one when she applied to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions for an overseas appointment In 1873 the Meiji government of Japan had agreed officially to tolerate Christianity. Because of its temperate climate and high level of civilization, Japan was a particularly attractive mission post. Single women were popular as missionaries there because Japanese homes were often open to them, and they could work directly with native women and children.
Colby developed a strong attachment to the Japanese people, but she was repelled by the inferior position of Japanese women. They were regarded as their husbands' property and could be easily divorced supplanted by a concubine. Often their education was limited to domestic chores and the tea ceremony. Like other missionaries Abby Colby was active in teaching sewing classes, infant health-care, and prayer and Bible studies. But she also fought a private war against the abuse of women. She persuaded one convert not to marry at all, and she purchased back young girls who had been sold by their parents into prostitution. Capitalizing on the respect Japanese men accorded to Americans, even to American women, she urged them to hold their own women in higher regard.
While working to improve the condition of women in Japan, Abby Colby recognized that she was not regarded as an equal of the men in her church. Since women were normally denied advanced theological training, they occupied an inferior position in the ranks of the missionaries. Colby was annoyed when the church advertised for English teachers to come to Japan, offering fifty dollars a month for women, and seventy-five for men. She was gratified on another issue when in 1893 the board accepted women as equal voting members of its annual meeting. In letters home she advocated woman suffrage and equal pay for women, exemplifying the growing demand by Congregationalist and other women for an equal place in society.
More of a common laborer in the missionary field than a pioneer or leader, Abby Colby typifies one of the more attractive characteristics of the best missionaries-an ability to accept and understand many features of a foreign culture. Her early letters home from Japan are full of laments about flimsy houses, strange food, and outlandish dress. Years later she had accepted all this, and she made Japan her home.
Bibliography
A: Letters in the papers of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Houghton Library, Harvard.
B: Sandra C. Taylor, "Abby M. Colby: The Christian Response to Sexist Society," New England Quarterly, 52 (1979), 68-79.