Woman's Auxiliary of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.

The Woman's Auxiliary of the Presbyterian Church, U.S. was an American women's religious organization established at Montreat, North Carolina, August 1912.

The following August, the Executive Secretaries, meeting with the Presidents of the five Synodicals then existing and other leading women, erected the Woman's Auxiliary, appointed the Superintendent and authorized the establishment of an office.

At the end of the two probationary years, the Auxiliary was able to present to the Assembly meeting in Kansas City in 1914, a completed organization, working under standardized methods, rapidly adopting a uniform educational program which included the whole program of the Church, and with all these accomplishments, every bill had been paid and a good supply of organization literature was on hand as well as a fair amount of office equipment.

Hanna's first article in the Church papers challenged the attention of Emma Longstreet Sibley (Mrs. Josiah Sibley), of Augusta, Georgia, a woman of the same vision and ideals, and together these two women, separated by hundreds of miles, worked for better organization among women's societies of the Southern Presbyterian Church.

The task was immense as they had no funds at their disposal, no office machinery for duplicating letters, no stenographer, or even typewriter, nor did they reckon on the fierce opposition of the conservative leaders.

[2] Although the Southern Presbyterian Church was among the first to have a local woman's missionary society, the progress to higher forms of organization had been slow.

Even as early as 1912 indications were in evidence that the Woman's Board, gathering its own funds and administering them, would soon become an antiquated form of organization.

McMillan approved of the statement, submitted it to her Executive Committee and with their endorsement, forwarded it to the Presidents of the five other Synodicals then in existence-Mrs. J. Calvin Stewart, Virginia; Mrs. Chris G. Dullnig, Texas; Mrs. W. C. Fritter, Alabama; Mrs. C. P. Crawford, Georgia, and Mrs. M. D. Irvine, Kentucky.

In February, an unofficial group of women representing eight Synods met in Atlanta to devise plans for promoting the publicity campaign which they decided should precede the presentation of the matter to the Assembly the following May.

These petitioning bodies of women agreed to ask no financial support for the new department for two years or until the organization had justified its existence.

[2] At the Assembly of 1914, the Church formally acknowledged the financial value of the Woman's Auxiliary and directed the four Executive Committees to furnish its budget.

When in 1923, at the Montreat Assembly, the Executive Committees were directed to add women to their membership, this important advance did not involve any change whatever in the Woman's Auxiliary, nor disturb any plan which was then in operation.

The Auxiliary had been organized in the beginning as a promotional agency for the whole program of the Church, and the placing of some of its representatives on Executive Committees was only the completion of the ideal in the minds of its founders.