Introduction

Both members and observers of the Seventh-day Adventist church acknowledge the profound influence exerted on the movement by its charismatic leader, Ellen G. White. Robin Theobald rightly judged that

Ellen White's voluminous writings have continued to shape Adventist faith and practice to a considerable extent to the present day. The fact that a woman has had such an enormous impact on the development of Adventism raises some important questions. Did her presence as a church leader help to dissolve prejudice against women assuming positions of responsibility? To what extent was her role restricted by the social constraints of the times? Did her presence as leader have a feminizing effect on doctrine, behaviour, and organization? Some awareness of the social context in which Ellen White lived is vital to the resolution of such questions.

The role of women in the United States

Americans in the nineteenth century shared the view that women should be unassertive and devoted to the moral welfare of their families. Theirs was to cultivate piety and master ‘the housewifely arts’. Women were, however, encouraged by popular magazines of the day to exercise an ‘influence … paramount to authority’ by employing a ‘decorous deviousness’.