The Suggs’ Family Conversion Narrative and Emma Ray’s Conversion

(Part of an ongoing series on the rhetorical narratives of two late nineteenth century and early twentieth century African-American Free Methodist Women) The conversion of Eliza Suggs’ father Suggs’ spent much of her life riding around in a baby carriage pushed by her sister Katie, who served as her caretaker, or another family member. So, while she had her own physical hardships to deal with, worldliness was not one of the vices she struggled with. Yet, Suggs realized this tension between things of the world and things of the spirit was an essential rhetorical device for her conversion narrative. As … Continue reading The Suggs’ Family Conversion Narrative and Emma Ray’s Conversion

John Wesley’s Arminian Magazine and Lay-Women’s Conversion Narratives

I’m returning to some research that I was writing about earlier in the year – the involvement of Free Methodist women in the temperance movement. My husband has his own blog where the article below is also posted. While his research focuses mostly on the 18th century and mine on the 19th and 20th century, I thought this article does a great job setting up how conversion narratives can be used to promote a particular Christian interpretation in a publication. John Wesley used conversion narrative to fuel on the Methodist movement, and in the last 19th century the Free Methodists … Continue reading John Wesley’s Arminian Magazine and Lay-Women’s Conversion Narratives