The Woman's Home Missionary Society was founded in 1880 after 50 women church members met in the Methodist Episcopal Church in Cincinnati "to confer together concerning the organization of a society having for its purpose the amelioration of the conditions of the freed-women of the South."
[1] The Society intended to send Christian women to "destitute" and "degraded" homes and neighborhoods where they would endeavor to "impart such instruction as can enlighten the minds, reform the habits, and purify the lives of the occupants.
"[2] The women asked First Lady Lucy Hayes, a committed Methodist, to become the president of the new organization.
In 1884, the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church officially recognized the missionary society.
That year they opened the "Oriental Home for Chinese Women and Girls" at 912 Washington Street in San Francisco's Chinatown, a two-story concrete building with 22 rooms.