Managing Worship,Mothering Missions: Children’s Prayerful Performances Linking the United States and Angola in the Early Twentieth Century

Abstract

In writings by Nellie Arnott, who taught for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Angola from 1905 to 1912, we find a complex interplay between affiliation and distancing in portrayals of her students and their communities. A somewhat different version of Arnott and her students appears in narratives written by editors and contributors to her main publication venue, Mission Studies: Woman’s Work in Foreign Lands. This essay investigates discursive tensions between her own narrative stance and that of her magazine managers, whose views on racial issues often displayed stereotypical bias against, and limited knowledge about, Angola.