The Feminism of Martha McWhirter
The Woman’s Commonwealth of Belton began as a small group of religious and “sanctified” women and transitioned to an economic powerhouse in the small frontier town in Texas during the latter years of the nineteenth century. This group, with their divergent religious beliefs and their communistic practices, would last over a century. The Commonwealth, also known as the Sanctified Sisters, created primarily of women and children from well-to-do area families, formed a tight circle around their leader, Martha McWhirter. These women remained faithful to their leader and the Commonwealth until the death of the final member in the 1980s. In the areas of religion, economics, and male relations, McWhirter’s views and actions are very similar to feminist beliefs. However, she displayed an ideology that reached beyond feminism and into the realms of female superiority.
The famous suffragette, Susan B. Anthony, said to McWhirter in a letter, “I only want to have her [woman] made equal with man in this republic.”[1] Anthony insinuated that McWhirter and the Sanctified Sisters considered themselves better than men, striving not for equality, but for elevation about their male peers, and creating a society that was strictly for women. Anthony’s skepticism encourages the modern historian to further examine the commune’s beliefs and practices. Indeed, their beliefs were feminist in
nature, but McWhirter utilized those tenets to further her own cause. Her cause elevated women of men in religious, economic, and relational status.
The Sanctified Sisters began when McWhirter experienced what she described as a “Pentecostal baptism,”[2] and what an unknown scribe described as “inward baptism. . .as if a pint of clear water had been poured on and through her body” in August of 1867.[3] This experience followed a long night of fear
and prayer after she heard a voice speaking to her as she walked home from a Methodist church meeting with her children. The voice asked, “These works, this meeting. Is it of God, or of the devil?”[4] She replied that the works were indeed of the devil. She received the “sanctification” of spiritual baptism the
next morning while preparing breakfast. She rushed to see her spiritual friend, Abigail Leach, to seek counsel. Leach emphatically told her that she was chosen and sanctified by God, and to “submit to it-for it is God’s work.”[5] With these words of affirmation, McWhirter accepted her“sanctification” and laid the
foundation for the future Woman’s Commonwealth of Belton.
The Commonwealth began primarily as a religious organization. A document signed by McWhirter’s daughter, Ada Haymond, granted her admission into the “Sanctified Church of Belton, Texas” in 1870.[6] McWhirter attested the Sanctified Sisters to be “Christian, as we understand the scriptures,”[7]
however she did not believe in literal interpretation, most noticeable in her refusal to take the Lord’s Supper and refusal of water baptism. She believed them to be “works of the devil.”[8] Churches represented one setting where men granted women more important roles of leadership. By creating, essentially, her
own version of Christianity, McWhirter took power and provided herself a loophole to begin to free herself from her husband’s dominance.
Of primary importance to the religious aspect of the Sanctified Sisters was their belief in celibacy, as perpetuated by McWhirter. Celibacy required the sanctified spouse to remain separate from the unsanctified spouse, both sexually and socially. By remaining celibate, the women retained their sanctified state. This also released the women from their natural domain, as reproducers, keepers of the home, and economic dependence on the male. Sex cemented the Victorian woman in her gender role. By remaining celibate, and
citing their religious beliefs for doing so, the Sisters took their first steps to equalizing the gender politics that dominated them.[9] Celibate sanctification proved more important than keeping marriages from disintegrating or their families from breaking apart. Many husbands divorced their wives. Most
of McWhirter’s own children remained with their father when he relocated his living quarters out of the McWhirter home, which became the center of the commune. Ironically, the McWhirters never divorced, but remained estranged from each other until his death. By claiming religious sanctification, and denying
sexual services to their husbands (which were viewed as the husband’s right), McWhirter and the Sanctified Sisters asserted themselves as dominant females.
The next step in female dominance is in the area of economics, where men were the undisputed dominant figure. Women were taught to be entirely reliant upon the man. McWhirter sought to change this dynamic. On one occasion, she asked her husband for $1.50, saying she needed to buy some necessary things.
He refused to give her the money until she told him exactly whay the money was needed. McWhirter responded, “This is the last time I shall ever ask you for a nickle [sic] again and moreover you shall never give one cent toward the support of the family again.”[10] She proceeded to sell milk to earn money so she did
not have to demonstrate economic reliance upon her husband. The other members of the Sanctified Sisters were also struggling with their husbands in this area, and soon a common fund was established. This common fund was accessed whenever a member had a financial need, and negated the need to seek money from the husband. By 1879, no woman would accept financial aid from her husband, except
for compensation for housework performed.[11] The Sisters established an economic commune, which they unabashedly called communism, and referred to it as providing “the fullest measure [of] honesty, sobriety, spirituality, happiness, and a keen sense of justice.”[12] Their freedom from the control of men was
their justice for their actions.
In addition to religious and economic aspects, the Sisters' relationship to men must also be examined. Men were not strictly banned from the community, and some did join, but never stayed long.[13] This probably had something to do with McWhirter’s strong feelings about the gender role of men. She spoke of a “double standard of morals required between men and women.” She hated the fact that men could be “the lowest of the low in sensuality and yet retain the esteem of society and be upheld in his vice.” The women of the
Commonwealth were determined that no such standard would be tolerated in their community.[14] The few men that did join the Sanctificationists all left on bad terms. There were two specific gentlemen, part of the commune at different times, which are described by our unknown historian in terms less than
favorable. Joseph Barlay, while performing acceptable work, was so full of men’s inherent sense of “bossism” that the community sent him away.[15] John Kerns, the clerk of the sisters’ Central Hotel, is described as constantly complaining and shirking his duties, and that every woman “despised him or regarded all his
action with contempt.”[16] The inherent opinions of McWhirter and the women of the commune affected how they viewed and interacted with men on a large scale.
For a woman who seemed desperate to remove herself from authoritative control, McWhirter was remarkable controlling herself. In the contract which Ada Haymond signed allowing her to join the Sanctified Sisters, it is worded as follows: “Ada M. Haymond agrees to conform to the rules and regulations of said Society, and to refrain from acts, conduct, or speech that would be prejudicial it its interests.....” The contract also stated that a member shall not ask for payment for any services they give while living in the commune.[17] The rules and regulations are not outlined in the document, nor were they formally outlined until over thirty years later when the Constitution and By-Laws of the Women’s Commonwealth was published. This fact gave McWhirter full discretion in determining the rules of the community, and what constituted obeying or disregarding the rules. Another example of her controlling nature is detailed in her first actions following her “sanctification.” She immediately went home and forbade her daughters from attending a ball. She also sought out the young men who planned on attending her daughters and requested that they cease their courtship. According to the source, the boys agreed and made no arguments.[18] McWhirter herself stated to a court that her judgment is typically regarded as best, and she is described as “merit[ing] and receiv[ing] the fullest and most embounded confidence from her people, who loved and obeyed in everything, either great or small.”[19] McWhirter demonstrated her paradoxical control over the women of the commune, which is interesting when one considers the commune apparently released women from controlling spouses.
Feminism purports to be about the equalization of the sexes. However, while the principles and lifestyle of the Sanctified Sisters certainly bore similarities to feminism, the lengths to which McWhirter went allude to
something different. She wanted to assert female dominance over men, and the community she established shows just how far she was willing to go to assert this independence and superiority of women to men. In doing so, McWhirter asserted dominance over the women of her community in such a way that can be
likened to the control men had over women in the Victorian age. She exchanged a severely limited female gender role for the more independent, female-superior role of a member of the Woman’s Commonwealth of Belton. Unfortunately for the women of Belton, they did not truly achieve a lifestyle free from dominance. But
a life dominated by a fellow woman, arguably, was much preferable to a life dominated by the “bossism” of men.
Endnotes
[1] Susan B. Anthony to Martha McWhirter, Rochester, April 17, 1903 in Sally Kitch, This Strange Society of Women: Reading the Letters and Lives of the Woman’s Commonwealth (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1993) Photograph Appendix, (hereafter known as This Strange Society).
[2] Eleanor James, “The Sanctificationists of Belton: A Woman’s Community in Texas,” The American West 2, no. 3 (1965): 67 and George P. Garrison, “A Woman’s Community in Texas,” The Charities Review 3, no. 1 (1893), 30, (hereafter known as Garrison).
[3] The Life and Spiritual Experience of Martha McWhirter, 9 March 1901, Sanctificationist Vertical File, Bell County Museum, Belton, Texas, 3 (hereafter know as Life).
[4] Ibid, 1.
[5] Ibid, 4.
[6] Legal Document Signed by Ada M. Haymond for Admission to the Sanctified Church of Belton, November 5, 1870, Sanctificationist Vertical File, Bell County Museum, Belton, Texas, (hereafter known as Sanctified Church Contract).
[7] Haymond vs. Haymond, Martha McWhirter’s Testimony to Int. 8, No. 3037, District Court of Bell County, Texas, (October 17, 1887), Sanctificationist Vertical File, Bell County Museum, Belton, Texas.
[8] Martha McWhirter, interviewed by William Neal Ramey, The Conclusion of Our Interview with Mrs. Martha McWhirter, the Noted Founder and Evangelist of the Church at Belton, Known as the Sanctificationists, Austin, Texas, August 22, 1883, Copy in Sanctificationist Vertical File, Bell County
Museum, Belton, Texas.
[9] Sally Kitch, Chaste Liberation: Celibacy and Female Cultural Status, (Urbana & Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 1989), 21.
[10] Life, 11.
[11] This Strange Society, 38.
[12] Constitution and By-Laws of the Woman’s Commonwealth of Washington D.C., (October 30, 1903), Sanctificationist Vertical File, Bell County Museum, Belton, Texas, 3.
[13] Captain A.H. Mattox, “The Woman’s Commonwealth: A Novel and Distinctively American Community for Women Only,” Social Service, November 1901, 167.
[14] Life, 33.
[15] Ibid, 36.
[16] Ibid, 45.
[17] Sanctified Church Contract.
[18] Life, 3-4.
[19] Ibid, 29.
Bibliography
B.W. Haymond vs. Ada Haymond. 3037 (District Court of Bell County, Texas, October 17, 1887).
"Constitution and By-Laws of the Woman's Commonwealth of Washington D.C." Washington D.C.,
October 30, 1902.
"Document Signed by Ada M. Haymond for Admission to the Sanctified Church of Belton." Belton, November 5, 1870.
Garrison, George P. "A Woman's Community in Texas." The Charities Review 3, no. 1 (1893): 28-46.
James, Eleanor. "The Sanctificationists of Belton." The American West 2, no. 3 (1965): 65-73.
Kitch, Sally. Chaste Liberation: Celibacy and Female Cultural Status. Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989.
—. This Strange Society of Women: Reading the Letters and Lives of the Woman's Commonwealth. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1993.
Mattox, Captain A.H. "The Woman's Commonwealth: A Novel and Distinctively American Community for Women Only." Social Service, 1901: 166-170.
McWhirter, Martha, interview by William Neal Ramey. The Conclusion of Our Interview with Mrs. Martha McWhirter, the Noted Founder and Evangelist of the Church at Belton, Known as the Santificationists, Austin, Texas, (August 22, 1883).
"The Life and Spiritual Experience of Martha McWhirter." Washington D.C., March 9, 1901.