Black Baptist women adopted efficiency as an organizing watchword

Evidence

Field secretary Ella Whitfield stated in her address to the convention in 1915: “This is a day of wonderful progress and efficiency is the watchword of the day.” Also the report of the Child Welfare Committee for the same year stated: “Efficiency is the watchword of the age. Efficiency in every vocation, enterprise and phase of life—religious, social, industrial.” — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 1509

Categorization

• DEFINE: Efficiency rhetoric, borrowed from Progressive-era managerial discourse, became a central idiom of Black Baptist women’s reform program.
• XREF: Echoes of Taylorism and scientific management moving into moral and religious life via the women’s movement. — connects to: Women’s collective labor, not just exceptional preachers, powered black Baptist churches — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 40; Black Baptist women deliberately cultivated organizational growth techniques — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 772; Black Baptist women combined rational reform with fervent worship — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 1504 (+2 more)