The Philadelphia Eleven are the eleven women who were the first women ordained priests in the Episcopal Church on July 29, 1974, two years before General Convention affirmed and explicitly authorized the ordination of women to the priesthood.Mary Sudman Donovan, A Different Call: Women's Ministries in the Episcopal Church, 1880-1920 (Morehouse-Barlow Publishing, 1986) covers the history of the Episcopal sisterhoods, the Woman's Auxiliary to the Board of Missions, Deaconesses, Professional Church Workers, and missionaries-- excellent source!
Background In the Episcopal Church, a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion, women being ordained priests in 1974 culminated a many decades long effort of women who had sought to increase their participation in and service to the Episcopal Church, first as laywomen and later as ordained women.Mary Sudman Donovan, A Different Call: Women's Ministries in the Episcopal Church, 1880-1920 (Morehouse-Barlow Publishing, 1986) provides excellent summary of the variety of ways women served in the church. Anglicans had long debated the issue.For example, see the book written by Canon Charles Raven, Women and Holy Orders: A Plea to the Church of England, 1975 Reprint (The Propers, 1928). The 1974 priestly ordinations resulted from prolonged efforts by many people, as well as changes in the Episcopal church and American society. No canon (church) law prohibited the ordination of women as deacons, priests or bishops; it had long been discussed and debated within the Anglican Communion.Womanpriest, Bozarth-Campbell, first edition, Paulist Press (1978), pp. 105-109,114-115 But only men were ordained priests or consecrated as bishops. Men were routinely ordained as "transitional deacons" before becoming priests a year later; now, permanent deacons are recognized as an order within clergy.Association for Episcopal Deacons, "A Brief History of AED and the Episcopal Diaconate," n.d., https://www.episcopaldeacons.org/history.html. This article states that "The ordination of women to the priesthood freed the diaconate to mature into its own." Actually, the first woman ordained a priest was Rev. Florence Li Tim-Oi who had been ordained in 1944 Hong Kong behind Japanese lines during World War II.Huang Yuan Ren, "Li-Tim Oi: The First Woman Priest in the Anglican Communion," Christianity Today, February 14, 2025, https://www.christianitytoday.com/2024/02/chinese-female-christians-florence-li-timoi-anglican/.Ted Harrison, Much Beloved Daughter: The Story of Florence Li Tim Oi (Morehouse-Barlow Publishing, 1985). Hong Kong ordained two other women priests in 1971, Joyce M. Bennett and Jane Hwang Hsien Yuen;Adam Lusher, "'Inspirational' First English Woman to Become an Anglican Priest Dies Aged 92 Joyce Bennett Became a Priest in the Chinese Branch of the Anglican Church in Hong Kong in 1971," Independent, July 13, 2015, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/inspirational-first-english-woman-to-become-an-anglican-priest-dies-aged-92-10386482.html. In 1975, the Bishop of Washington DC invited the other woman ordained in Hong Kong in 1971, the Rev. Jane Hwang Hsien Yuenher to celebrate communion. "Hong Kong Priest Visits Southern Ohio 7," Diocesan Press Service 75201, May 28, 1975, https://digitalarchives.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/ENS/ENSphoto_display.pl?pr_number=75201&photo_index=0. Canada legally ordained its first women priests in December 1976."Canadian Anglicans Ordain Women Priests," Episcopal News Service 76377, December 7, 1976, https://digitalarchives.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/ENS/ENSpress_release.pl?pr_number=76377.
During the first half of the twentieth century, women in the Episcopal Church continued to explore ways to increase their participation in the life of the church. Women had long sought ways to participate and serve in the Episcopal Church, to "answer their calls," sometimes finding them thwarted as Frederick W. Schmidt discusses in "The Episcopal Church: A Hierarchical and Male-Dominated Culture." In 1871, lay women founded the Woman's Auxiliary to the Board of Missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church which raised millions of dollars for its workMary Sudman Donovan, "Zealous Evangelists: the Woman's Auxiliary to the Board of Missions," Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 51, no. 4 (1982): 371–83. The Woman's Auxiliary (now, Episcopal Churchwomen) which has provided massive amounts of funding and missionary support for the church through its United Thank Offering.Rima Lunin Schultz, "Woman's Work and Woman's Calling in the Episcopal Church: Chicago, 1880-1989," in Episcopal Women: Gender, Spirituality and Commitment in an American Mainline Denomination (Oxford University Press, 1992). Lay women served on parish altar guilds, taught Sunday school, and belonged to various parish guilds and circles which prayed, studied and acted.Rima Lunin Schultz, "Woman's Work and Woman's Calling in the Episcopal Church: Chicago, 1880-1989," in Episcopal Women: Gender, Spirituality and Commitment in an American Mainline Denomination (Oxford University Press, 1992), especially p. 35. In 1850 members of the Dorcas Society sewed clothing for the poor; in 1970 San Jose Costa Rica they packaged seeds for distribution.Mary Sudman Donovan, A Different Call: Women's Ministries in the Episcopal Church, 1880-1920 (Morehouse-Barlow Publishing, 1986), 8. See bulletin, Church of the Good Shepherd, San Jose Costa Rica, 1970. As Irene Brown explains, their "traditional" female work of feeding, sewing as well as holding church bazaars can be understood as religious devotion.Irene Q. Brown (1992), "Women's Work of Devotion: Feasts, Fairs, and Festivities," in Episcopal Women: Gender, Spirituality and Commitment in an American Mainline Denomination (Oxford University Press). Episcopal women worked in their parishes as professional church workers;Rima Lunin Schultz, "Woman's Work and Woman's Calling in the Episcopal Church: Chicago, 1880-1989," in Episcopal Women: Gender, Spirituality and Commitment in an American Mainline Denomination (Oxford University Press, 1992). Ellen Gates Starr resided at Hull-House. In this chapter, Schulz traces the tension inherent between the "high" Anglo-Catholic diocese of Chicago and varied aspirations of women. and became directors of religious education, or "DREs."Hein & Shattuck (2004), p. 128 Women also joined a variety of church-related groups including the Girls' Friendly Society, the King's Daughters, Mothers' Meetings and Young Married Women's Society.Mary Sudman Donovan, A Different Call: Women's Ministries in the Episcopal Church, 1880-1920 (Morehouse-Barlow Publishing, 1986), 7. As part of the Social Gospel movement women became more publicly active in church-related organizations. Historian Mary Sudman Donovan notes that "a surprisingly large number of women writers and educators" became Episcopalians, including both Catherine Beecher and her sister Harriet Beecher Stowe, Emma Willard and Sarah Josepha Hale (editor of Godey's Lady's Book).Mary Sudman Donovan, A Different Call: Women's Ministries in the Episcopal Church, 1880-1920 (Morehouse-Barlow Publishing, 1986), 20-21. The Stowes wrote The American Woman's Home or, Principles of Domestic Science: Being A Guide To the Formation and Maintenance of Economical, Healthful, Beautiful, and Christian Homes (Stowe-Day Foundation, 1869). Emma Willard founded the pioneering Troy Female Seminary to educate young women. Women were gradually allowed to be elected to serve on church vestries (parish governing structures). In 1916, the Bishop of Maine, the Rt. Rev. Benjamin Brewster had first proposed "to accord to female communicants of the Church full rights, responsibilities, and privileges."Episcopal Church House of Bishops, Proposed Constitutional Amendment, 45th General Convention of the Episcopal Church 4, Committee on Amendments (Austin TX, 1916), 40, Episcopal Church Archives, https://exhibits.episcopalarchives.org/files/original/4dc2d239cb3238c9f53797f253e45a02a32d0a0e.pdf. But the House of Bishops resolved, "That it is inexpedient to adopt a Constitutional amendment providing for the election of women as members of the House of Deputies."Episcopal Church House of Bishops, Proposed Constitutional Amendment, 45th General Convention of the Episcopal Church 4, Committee on Amendments (Austin TX, 1916), 75, Episcopal Church Archives, https://exhibits.episcopalarchives.org/files/original/4dc2d239cb3238c9f53797f253e45a02a32d0a0e.pdf. In 1946, Elizabeth Dyer (Mrs. Randolph H. Dyer) was elected from the Diocese of Missouri and became the first woman seated at a General Convention."General Convention's Only Woman Deputy" The Episcopalian, 1964 need more here In 1970 women officially became deputies to the church wide General Convention."Role of Women in Church Is Changing .," Diocesan Press Service, April 2, 1969, [76-4] Edition, https://digitalarchives.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/ENS/ENSpress_release.pl?pr_number=76-4.The Philadelphia Eleven, directed by Margo Guernsey (DER, 2023), 90 min.
Two other roles for Episcopal women to serve were as nuns in sisterhoods and as deaconesses reflect its Catholic-Protestant duality. The first Episcopal sisterhoods followed English women's examples and met some suspicion for being too similar to Roman Catholic ones.Mary Sudman Donovan, A Different Call: Women's Ministries in the Episcopal Church, 1880-1920 (Morehouse-Barlow Publishing, 1986). See Chapter Four, "Episcopal Sisterhoods, 1850-1920," 29-51. Their famous nursing during the 1878 yellow fever epidemic that killed 5000 people in Memphis changed attitudes towards Episcopal women becoming sisters.Mary Sudman Donovan, A Different Call: Women's Ministries in the Episcopal Church, 1880-1920 (Morehouse-Barlow Publishing, 1986), 41.Sudman Donovan lists an impressive number of such groups, pages 43-47 and discusses their ministries to Blacks. The order of deaconesses was revived in Kaiserwerth Germany.
The New York Training School for Deaconesses and St. Margaret's House of Berkeley, California trained deaconesses. Windham House in New York City trained women for other professional roles.Fredrica Harris Thompsett, "'Windham House Women, 1928-67: An Overlooked Chapter in Episcopal Women's History.,'" in Deeper Joy: Lay Women and Vocation in the 20th Century Episcopal Church (Church Publishing Incorporated, 2005). They lived and worked in settlement houses such Hull-House in Chicago which Ellen Starr Gates co-founded with Jane Addams.Britannica, "Ellen Gates Starr" (Britannica, Inc., August 3, 2025), https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ellen-Gates-Starr.