BAPTIST HOME MISSIONS IN NORTH AMERICA; Including a Full Report on the Proceedings and Addresses of the Jubilee Meeting, and a Historical Sketch of the American Baptist Home Mission Society, Historical Tables, Etc. 1832-1882

New York: Baptist Home Mission Rooms, 1883. First Edition. Hardcover. Good. The first history of the Baptist Home Missionary Society, founded in New York in 1832 "to promote the preaching of the gospel in North America." The BHMS was one of the last Protestant national home missionary societies to be formed, following the Methodists (1819), Episcopalians (1821), Presbyterians and Congregationalists (1826), and the Dutch Reformed Church (1831). Each was formed to preach the gospel to the United States' rapidly growing population on its western frontiers - although, as historian Colin Goodykoontz observed, "in denominational rivalries [...] is to be found one of the compelling motives for home missions."

This Jubilee history contains an extensive account of the BHMS' work among Freedman in the South, which began during the Civil War and encompassed not only evangelism but an extensive attempt to build educational institutions after the war; outreach to the Chinese on the West Coast; immigrant groups, including Germans, Scandinavians, and French Canadians; Native Americans; and the Spanish-speaking people of the Southwest. It also contains a detailed historical table listing the Society's missionaries, state by state.

This copy bears the ownership inscription of Mrs. Florence Case (1859-1945), a Wisconsin native who came to California in 1874 and settled in Pasadena in 1912. Florence was a 60-year member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, in which she was quite active, and belonged to Tremont Baptist Church in Pasadena.

Octavo: 619 p. Original brown cloth binding, with gilt titles, elaborate black and blind stamping, and decorative endpapers. The front hinge is cracked, but still quite sound. Some general shelfwear to the boards, largely at the corners and tips.