The founder and president of the Mothers' Union, one of the first and largest women's organisations, Mary Sumner (1828-1921) was an influential educator and a force to be reckoned with in the Church of England of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Using the analytical tools of the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, Sue Anderson-Faithful locates Mary Sumner's life and thought against social and religious networks in which she was restricted by gender yet privileged by class and proximity to distinguished individuals. This dichotomy is key to understanding the achievements of a woman who both replicated and shaped Victorian attitudes to women's roles in society. To Mary Sumner mission and education meant the propagation of religious knowledge through progressive pedagogy. Her activism was intended to promote social reform at home and nurture the growth of the British Empire with mothers wielding their political power as educators of future citizens. The symbiotic relationship between Church and State concentrated power in the hands of a ruling class with which Mary Sumner identified and which she supported. In her view the legitimacy of national and imperial rule was intertwined with the moral force of Anglicanism. SueAnderson-Faithful interprets Mary Sumner's lifelong work in the light of these relationships, contrasting her assertion of personal agency and an empowering discourse of motherhood with her simultaneous reinforcement of patriarchy and class privilege.

Ancestry of Jane Maria Greenleaf Boardman (1835-1899), daughter of Dr. Charles and Electa Toocker Greanleaf. She was born and died in Hartford, Connecticut. Her father "[Dr.] Charles Greenleaf, son of David Greenleaf and Anna (Nancy) Jones, was born in Hartford, Conn., June 2, 1788. ... Dr. Greenleaf married in Hartford in 1808, Electa Toocker, [daughter of Joseph and Hannah Toocker] who was born in Hartford, October 6, 1791, and died there April 9, 1864. ... He died in Hartrord, December 18, 1834 and was buried in the Old North burying ground, his remains being removed later to Spring Grove Cemetery."--Page 21-22. "William Francis Boardman, to whom Jane Maria Greenleaf was married January 7, 1852, was born in Wethersfield, Conn., December 12, 1828 being the son of William Boardman and Mary Francis."--Page [14]. Ancestors, descendants and relatives lived in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, California and elsewhere.

The founder and president of the Mothers’ Union, one of the first and largest women’s organisations, Mary Sumner (1828-1921) was an influential educator and a force to be reckoned with in the Church of England of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Using the analytical tools of the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, Sue Anderson-Faithful locates Mary Sumner’s life and thought against social and religious networks in which she was restricted by gender yet privileged by class and proximity to distinguished individuals. This dichotomy is key to understanding the achievements of a woman who both replicated and shaped Victorian attitudes to women’s roles in society. To Mary Sumner mission and education meant the propagation of religious knowledge through progressive pedagogy. Her activism was intended to promote social reform at home and nurture the growth of the British Empire with mothers wielding their political power as educators of future citizens. The symbiotic relationship between Church and State concentrated power in the hands of a ruling class with which Mary Sumner identified and which she supported. In her view the legitimacy of national and imperial rule was intertwined with the moral force of Anglicanism. Sue Anderson-Faithful interprets Mary Sumner’s lifelong work in the light of these relationships, contrasting her assertion of personal agency and an empowering discourse of motherhood with her simultaneous reinforcement of patriarchy and class privilege.