A Feminized Church? The Campaign for Women's Suffrage in Alsace-Lorraine's Protestant Churches, 1907–1914

Abstract

By 1850, a major shift in how Europeans participated in the Christian religion was well underway. On Sundays, most members of a church's or chapel's congregation were women. Women received communion more assiduously than their male counterparts. Catholic religious congregations for women were founded and joined at rates well above those for men. In Protestant lands, women became deaconesses. From Italy to Scotland, women contributed greatly to churches' social and charitable missions through their active involvement in voluntary associations and parish committees. Moreover, mothers now had the primary obligation to nourish religious sentiments in the home. Even the representation of angels had changed, the powerful, free masculine figure replaced by one who was restrained, domesticated, and feminine.