Comrades in a Sacred Cause. Methodist Women, Social Gospel and the Suffrage Movement in the Early Twentieth Century

Social Gospel is a distinct product of the history of American Christianity and Methodist churches became part of it after the Civil War. Notwithstanding the predominant historiography of male historians writing about an apparently only-male movement, Social Gospel is tied to the path of female suffrage particularly designed by American Methodist women between 1880 and 1920. The aim of this essay is to present a step in the research related to the specific role of Methodist women in the Social Gospel movement and to grasp how it affected the fight for women’s vote. The figure of Anna Howard Shaw is presented as a preliminary key study.