Beulah Woolston (August 3, 1828 – October 24, 1886) was a pioneering American missionary teacher in China. With her sister, she founded schools, translated
textbook
A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions, but also of learners ( ...
s, and edited a Chinese-language newspaper.
Early life and education
Beulah Woolston was born near
Vincentown, New Jersey, on August 3, 1828. She was raised in a Christian home, and was converted and united with the church when about fifteen years old. After receiving preliminary education in her native place, she went with Miss Sarah H. Woolston, her sister and her life associate in home and work, to the
Wesleyan Female College, at
Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington is the List of municipalities in Delaware, most populous city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish colonization of the Americas, Swedish settlement in North America. It lie ...
, where she was graduated with honor from both English and classical departments.
Career
She afterward taught for some years in the college, before responding to the call for missionary teachers in the China Mission. The sisters sailed for China, along with Phebe Potter (who soon married
Erastus Wentworth), October 4, 1858. After a voyage of 147 days around the
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa.
A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...
, they landed at
Shanghai
Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...
, February 27, 1859, and reached
Fuzhou
Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian, China. The city lies between the Min River (Fujian), Min River estuary to the south and the city of Ningde to the north. Together, Fuzhou and Ningde make up the Eastern Min, Mindong linguistic and cultural regi ...
, March 19. Their special work was to organize and superintend a boarding school for Chinese girls under the auspices of the China Female Missionary Society of
Baltimore
Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...
. The sisters were sent out by the parent board,
American Methodist Episcopal Mission, but their school was supported by the Ladies' China Missionary Society of Baltimore (founded in 1848).
In 1859, they founded a training school for teachers in Fuzhou. Known as "Uk Ing", it was a girls' boarding school.
They overcome the natural prejudices of the people, emphasized by the wrongs done them by foreign traders, and the lack of books, maps, charts for a well-established school. When Bishop
John Burdon, of the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...
, visited the school, he declared it to be the best-conducted girls' school in China.
The sisters' aim was to teach the girls such instruction as would make them useful in their own homes and in the spheres they must occupy in life, feeling that they could not conscientiously give time to teach anything that could be of no possible use to them in the future. In addition to the care of this school, hundreds of women visited them at their home. Every effort was made to utilize their visits for teaching. In addition to caring for the schools, the sisters provided many of the girls with clothing, teaching them to make their own, to cook, wash, and other details for the education of good housewives.
Even vacation days were busy, as they had to provide homes for many of the girls during the time. They also established a number of day schools at different and often distant points in their work, which they visited regularly, and often at great inconvenience and exposure to themselves. With all of this work, they found time for literary work such as preparation and translation of schoolbooks, as well as the editing of the ''Child's Illustrated Paper'' in Chinese.
During their twenty-five years' service they returned to the United States twice for rest and to recruit. In 1871, when the Ladies' China Society became a part of the Methodist Episcopal Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, the Woolston sisters became its first missionaries.
Later life
In December, 1883, both sisters were ill, and returned to the U.S. for the last time. At times, Beulah seemed to improve. On October 24, 1886, she grew much worse, and died, at
Mount Holly, New Jersey
Mount Holly is a Township (New Jersey), township that is the county seat of Burlington County, New Jersey, Burlington County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is an eastern suburb of Philadelphia, the nation's sixth largest city as of 2020. As ...
.
Selected works
* 1877, "Feet Binding"
References
Attribution
*
Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Woolston, Beulah
1828 births
1886 deaths
People from Southampton Township, New Jersey
American Christian missionaries
Methodist missionaries in China
American translators
American women newspaper editors
19th-century American writers
19th-century American women writers
Educators from New Jersey
19th-century American educators
19th-century American women educators
Wesleyan Female College (Wilmington) alumni
American missionary linguists
19th-century American newspaper editors