Evangelism and feminism in China's northwest: The double identities of Mildred Cable, Evangeline French and Francesca French

This thesis examines life stories of the Trio---Mildred Cable, Evangeline French and Francesca French---as missionaries of the China Inland Mission in China from 1902 to 1936, and considers how feminist ideology intersected with their evangelistic work. I argue that apart from their noted names as overseas missionaries, the Trio's lives indicated they could be regarded as feminists as well. In order to analyse the Trio's identities as feminists, I consider the historical and social backgrounds of the Trio to find out the changes of middle-class women's role in the last decades of nineteenth-century Britain before reviewing the Trio's evangelism and itineration in China. Besides, I also examine the images of Chinese women and Muslim women in northwestern China implied in the Trio's writings to understand the Trio's perspectives on the status of women in China.