Table Of Content
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Susan Thorne
Stanford,California
Stanford University Press
Stanford,California
© by the Board ofTrustees of the
Leland Stanford Junior University
Printed in the United States of America
data appear at the end of the book
To Tim Schrand
and in memory of Beulah Davis Selph,–
Acknowledgments
I have accumulated an enormous debt during the very long time it has
taken me to finish this book,and I will begin by apologizing to anyone I ne-
glect to mention among the many friends and colleagues who have helped
me along the way.I want first to thank the teachers—especially Carl Pletsch,
Lee Schlesinger,Joan Scott,Beverly Grier,Nell Painter,and Thomas Reefe—
who guided me to and through the beginnings of this project during my un-
dergraduate sojourn at the University of North Carolina.The enthusiastic
and respectful manner in which they responded to my naive and underedu-
cated efforts to grapple with the past taught me to value what I had to say
enough to imagine that I could be a historian too. I found at the University
of Michigan the ideal faculty ensemble with whom to pursue my developing
interests in the intersection of race,class,and empire.For their extraordinary
intellectual insight and many personal kindnesses,I want to thank Frederick
Cooper,Thomas Holt, Jacob Price,Ann Stoler,Louise Tilly,and especially
Geoff Eley.Geoff Eley’s warmth,good humor,and keen intellect made him
the perfect supervisor.I was also extremely fortunate in my graduate student
cohort. For their inspiration,encouragement,and friendship I thank Rich
Bodek,Joel Harrington,Young-Sun Hong,Sue Juster,Kären Mason,David
Mayfield,Becky Reed,Matt Shaeffer,and Elizabeth Wood.
While in England,I benefited enormously from the helpful advice and
friendly hospitality of Kelly King Boyd,P. J. Corfield,Anna Davin,David
viii
Feldman, Rohan McWilliam, Clare Midgley, John Seed, John Styles,
Amanda Vickery, and Julie Wheelwright. Since leaving graduate school, I
have also been fortunate in good colleagues,both at Worcester Polytechnic
Institute and at Duke University. I offer special thanks to the senior women
in Worcester and the Triangle,whose thoughtful overtures both large and
small have done so much to smooth my way. I would particularly like to
mention Judith Bennett,Jan Ewald,Jacquelyn Hall,Cynthia Herrup,Nancy
Hewitt,Claudia Koonz,Joanne Manfra,Kristen Neuschel,and Ruth Smith.
I hope that my generation will be as generous with our privilege.I could not
have survived without the comradely encouragement of those who shared
the trenches of junior facultydom with me,especially Joel Bratton,Catherine
Peyroux,Julius Scott,Jennifer Thorn,and Kären Wigen. I want also to ac-
knowledge the inspiring example of politically engaged and intellectually
rigorous scholarship set by the graduate students alongside whom I’ve worked
at Duke. My admiring best wishes go to Michael McQuarrie,who helped
me learn from my many mistakes.
I could not have completed this project without the generous financial
support of the Social Science Research Council,the Woodrow Wilson Fel-
lowship Foundation,the American Council of Learned Societies,the Univer-
sity of Michigan,and Duke University. Nor could I have found my way to
many of the sources consulted without the expert guidance of many helpful
librarians and archivists at the Harlan Hatcher Library at the University of
Michigan,the Perkins Library and the Divinity School Library at Duke Uni-
versity,the Divinity School Library at Yale University,Dr.Williams’s Library,
the Library at the School for Oriental and African Studies,the British Library,
Colindale Newspaper Library,the Greater London Record Office,the Corn-
wall Record Office,the Leicestershire Record Office,the Leeds Archives De-
partment,the West Yorkshire Archive Service,Bradford Central Library,Leeds
Central Library,the East Sussex Record Office,and the Essex Record Office.
The suggestions and concerns raised by seminar and conference audi-
ences have been extremely useful to me. I want to thank Jacquelyn Hall for
inviting me to speak to the Feminist Women in History Group in Chapel
Hill;Richard Price for the opportunity to address the British Studies semi-
nar at the University of Maryland;Rachel Weill for the opportunity to ad-
dress the European History seminar at Cornell University;David Feldman,
Peter Mandler,and Martin Daunton for the opportunity to address the So-
cial History Seminar at the Institute of Historical Research at the University
of London;and Hugh McLeod for the opportunity to participate in the De-
cline of Christendom Colloquium sponsored by the Missiology of Western
Culture.
ix
My greatest debt is to all those who read some or all of this manuscript
in its various incarnations.John Cell,Fred Cooper,Arif Dirlik,Laura Downs,
Geoff Eley, Jan Ewald,Cynthia Herrup,Susan Juster,Hugh McLeod,Clare
Midgley, Jacob Price,and Ann Stoler read the dissertation through in its en-
tirety and gave me helpful comments about its possibilities as well as its prob-
lems.Further down the road,Anna Clark,Geoff Eley,Fred Cooper,Cather-
ine Hall,David Mayfield,Nathan Quandt,Russell Richey,Tim Schrand,
John Seed,Ruth Smith,Richard Soloway,Ann Stoler,Jennifer Thorn,Rachel
Weill,and Kären Wigen provided meaningful comments on various sections
of the book manuscript that emerged.That it did emerge is thanks in no
small part to the always encouraging admonitions of my local mentors,Judith
Bennett and Nancy Hewitt. Nancy Hewitt also undertook the Herculean
task of reading the resulting manuscript in its entirety,as did Antoinette Bur-
ton,John Cell,David Feldman,Cynthia Herrup,Danny James,Philippa Le-
vine,Catherine Peyroux,Norris Pope,Andrew Porter,Matthew Price,and
Laura Tabili,all of whom lent to the sometimes painful process of revising yet
again a dialogic pleasure. I want also to thank my editors at Stanford Uni-
versity Press:Norris Pope,Peter Kahn,Kate Warne,and Ruth Barzel.The
book would be better had I been able to execute more of my readers’many
insightful suggestions,and it owes most of what virtue it claims to those I was
able to take on board. Unfortunately,I am responsible for its shortcomings.
I want finally to thank my family—the Schrands,Thornes,Brzorads,and
DeMumbrums—for putting up with my often grumpy self-absorption and
for providing much needed perspective. Michelle and Jennifer,you’re my
loves;the next one is for you.I am dedicating this book to your father,a small
recompense for making everything possible, and to the memory of your
great-grandmother,whose commitment to the Ladies Missionary Auxiliary of
the First United Methodist Church in Hamlet,North Carolina,was my in-
troduction to the ties by which foreign missions have bound the most local of
worlds to global arenas.
S.T.
