ORGANIZATIONAL SKETCH
The Methodist Episcopal Church in America became divided in 1844 over the
movement to abolish slavery prior to the Civil War.
Two branches of Methodism-the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South-each had its separate board and conferences. These overlapped geographically, so Missouri is concerned with the work of the M.E. Church and M.E. Church, South. Originally, each of these had a Woman’s Home Missionary Society, A Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, and a Ladies Aid.
As I was researching for documentation for my grandmother, Lena Clementine Moseley's profile, I came upon these Board Notes from Southwest Missouri Conference of The Methodist Church. She was a member of the Methodist Church Women's Society of Christian Services Local and District Committee Representative. A very important part of the vote for women to become ministers in the future and to have equal rights. They were backing Women's suffrage[http://www.umc.org/who-we-are/timeline-of-women-in-methodism]
I was aware of the information above, but not the disorganization of the Church for so long about Slavery. This is a link to the full documentation--- https://collections.shsmo.org/manuscripts/columbia/c3120.pdf
About 1910, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South united these three organizations into “The Woman’s Missionary Society” under the Board of Missions in the Church. The Methodist Episcopal Church continued the 3 separate organizations.
In 1939, Missouri was divided by geographical boundaries into three conferences: (1) The Missouri Conference, including all area north of the Missouri River except Montgomery, Warren, Lincoln, and St. Charles County. These counties were put into (2) the St. Louis Conference, which included about half of the geographical area south of the Missouri River. The rest of the state South of the Missouri River, including Kansas City, was known as the Southwest Missouri Conference (3).
In 1961 these boundaries were realigned and Missouri became split almost in half form north to south, and the Conferences became known as the Missouri East, and the Missouri West Conferences. Each of these conferences had an organized conference Woman’s Society of Christian Service, and as many district woman’s Societies as there were districts within the respective conferences.
