Hardcover - 416 pages 1 Ed edition (August 1999)
Knopf; ISBN: 0679437622 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.35 x 9.59 x 6.65

Reviews
Amazon.com
Daughters of Light by Rebecca Larson is a startling reassessment of the place of women in American colonial history. Larson's story of 18th-century Quaker women describes women's power in popular reform movements of that era, and explores Quaker women's redefinitions of marriage and motherhood. Colonial Quakers, like their contemporary descendants, believed that "the Holy Spirit had been planted in the hearts of all humans to inwardly teach them." Although Quakers had strict rules regarding women's dress, language, and behavior, Quaker women were never denied their claims of a direct connection to God. (Their Puritan sisters, by contrast, practiced a religion that idealized female submission in both the earthly and spiritual realms.) So when Quaker women believed they were called to preach--in meeting houses, courthouses, and private homes; to other Quakers, to Native Americans, and to ecumenical audiences; in the West Indies, England, Europe, and the American colonies--they were given the freedom to do so. All domestic duties were configured to account for divine demands. (The Spirit leading Quaker women, as one wrote, "was to me like a needle of a compass ... for so it pointed where I ought to go.")

Daughters of Light begins with a deft summary of Quaker history; it moves on to consider the theological justification for women's preaching, the ways in which women discerned their callings and arranged their journeys, and the effects of these journeys on private life, on Quaker communities abroad, and on the larger culture of colonial America. Larson is best, however, at describing the transformations wrought by these journeys on the women's inner lives. "Thy mother is become very courageous in riding thru deep waters and over rocky mountains beyond what I could expect," one woman wrote to another's child, in 1724. "She says fear is taken away from her and that she is born up by a secret hand, which I am very glad of and thankful to the Lord for." --Michael Joseph Gross

From Booklist , August 19, 1999
Larson accessibly presents the Society of Friends--the Quakers--from its seventeenth-century origins to the end of the eighteenth century. As the subtitle indicates, she is particularly interested in Quaker women involved in transatlantic ministry during that formative period, preaching to substantial audiences in the colonies and in Britain. Larson convincingly argues that those "public friends" profoundly affected other Quakers and the general public and that that has been overlooked in accounts of the period that focus on Puritanism. Substantial Quaker populations in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and elsewhere ensured them an impact with political implications before the Revolution (afterward, that impact transformed because of Friends' consistent commitment to pacifism). The broad literacy of the Quaker community, which was a result of the absence in it of a formally educated clergy, produced a sizable, if generally unfamiliar, written record that Larson's engaging account opens to a larger audience. In so doing, she provides a welcome corrective to popular historical accounts that underestimate the roles of women and religious diversity in early American history. Steven Schroeder
Copyright© 1999, American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Kirkus Reviews
Wonderfully researched and written history of 18th-century Quaker women preachers. Because Quakers held to a doctrine of Christ's ``Inward Light,'' which dwelt in all people, women as well as men, were viewed as potential instruments for the divine. As Quakerism became more established in England and America, the informal exhortations of the 17th century gave way to a more permanent network of ``public friends'' who traveled abroad and preached Quakerism's message. Women were a part of this spiritual elite, and Larson, who has a doctorate from Harvard, eloquently demonstrates the surprising influence women ``ministers'' wielded. Larson has narrowed her study to the approximately 1,500 English and American Quaker women in the 18th century who traveled across the Atlantic to preach and help establish Quaker meetings. In an era when few women wrote and only a scant handful were published, these women saw their sermons and tracts reach an eager transatlantic audience. When women scarcely traveled much distance beyond their hometowns, Quaker women with a ``concern'' for a particular destination journeyed thousands of miles through dangerous conditions to preach before mixed audiences. Believing that they were called of God to preach, they were absent from husbands and young children for years at a stretch. Larson shows that these preaching women were not simply novelties; they exerted real power over the direction of the midcentury Quaker Reformation. When the movement threatened to wax soft in the face of religious toleration and material prosperity, female Friends encouraged a return to the strict tenets of early Quakerism. Women ministers demanded a retrenchment of dress, a renewed commitment to pacifism, and a universal abolitionist stance when such opinions were unfashionable among successful Quakers. And the female reformers won. Largely because of their persistent message, colonial Friends renounced politics and slaveholding, and settled into Quakerism's now familiar trajectory of quiet activism and social justice. One of the best books ever on women and Quakerism. (25 illustrations) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Book Description
In this pathbreaking book, Rebecca Larson restores a group of remarkable women to the American historical landscape. From Ann Moore, whose religious vision impelled her to preach to the British military during the French and Indian War, advising them to rely not on physical weapons and warfare but upon God; to Mary Weston, whose visit in the 1750s to Charleston, South Carolina, prompted the colonial legislature to adjourn in order to attend the noted preacher 's meeting; to the celebrated Rachel Wilson, whose eloquence and piety drew crowds during her ministerial tour of the colonies in 1768 to 1769, Larson broadens our conception of women's activities before the American Revolution.

More than a thousand Quaker women ministers were active in the Anglo-American world during this era, when Quakers formed the third-largest religious group in the colonies. Some circulated throughout British North America; others crossed the Atlantic to deliver their inspired messages. In this astonishing public role, they preached in courthouses, meeting-houses, and private homes to audiences of men and women, to those of other faiths as well as to Quakers, to Native Americans and to slaves. At times they crossed paths with prominent figures such as Patrick Henry and Henry Laurens.

Larson offers striking insights on the ways in which this public, authoritative role for women affected the formation of their identities, their families, and their society. How did these spiritual leaders negotiate the challenges of marriage and childbearing while travelling thousands of miles on religious journeys? Some even traveled during pregnancy, leaving small children at home to be cared for by their husbands or the Quaker community. Through their interweaving narratives we hear long-silenced, forgotten voices that deepen our understanding of the once thriving transatlantic Quaker culture that balanced mysticism with pragmatism, recognizing female as well as male spiritual leaders.

Daughters of Light is an important contribution to the history of women and religion in early America.