Maud, Emma, Evangeline America’s Love Affairs With the 3 Booth Women R.G. Moyles 2014 Frontier Press All rights reserved. Except for fair dealing permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any means without written permission from the publisher. Moyles, R.G. Maud, Emma, Evangeline America’s Love Affairs With the 3 Booth Women July 2014 Copyright © The Salvation Army USA Western Territory ISBN 978-0-9768465-9-8 Printed in the United States Table of Contents Foreword 1 Introduction 3 Maud Ballington Booth 7 Emma Booth-Tucker 42 Evangeline Cory Booth 67 Afterword 117 Booth Women / 1 FOREWORD By Major Kevin E. Jackson The history of The Salvation Army is incredibly rich. Those who spend time researching and writing it are keenly aware of this truth. Those who choose to read books, articles and thoughtful studies on The Salvation Army’s past come to understand the depth and importance of the subject. The history of this organization maintains a uniqueness that separates this movement from oth- er religious organizations, churches and nonprofits. We are similar in some respects, but our uniqueness is what tells the story that most readers of our past want to know and profit from. Just prior to the release of Maud, Emma, Evangeline: America’s Love Affair with the 3 Booth Women, I spent several hours interviewing Dr. R. Gordon Moyles for a promotional video about the book. I was taken by Moyles’ pas- sion for the subject of his latest work, and his lifelong study of The Salvation Army. Like any good story, the illuminating qualities of a book are usually found in the details of a well-researched and written manuscript. So it is with Moyles’ book. He has crafted the story of these three brilliant leaders who sequentially succeeded each other as national leaders of The Salvation Army in the first third of our history in the U.S. When we read the pages we see intricate details of these women’s lives as they were viewed through the lens of the American press at the time of their individual terms of leadership. At a time when most women were left off the pages of history, Maud, Emma and Evangeline Booth were commonly filling the front pages of newspapers and magazines with their stories and the story of their fledgling organiza- tion. You can see the parallel rise of The Salvation Army and their gifted and R.G. Moyles / 2 visionary leadership. We are now, through this new and unique research, able to gain a perspective of our past denied by more traditional approach- es. Moyles makes history fun and enlightening. He reaches back to a time of profound and tremendous change in history and provides us a perspective long lost. We are afforded an opportunity to rediscover an imagination and interpretation of our past. Reading history should be like traveling to a dis- tant, unknown land. Moyles opens a door to the past allowing us such an experience. We get glimpses and traces of individuals and a world long since gone—important and not to be forgotten. The story of Maud, Emma and Evangeline as seen through the lens of popular American culture enables us to witness traces of the past. But this narrative also provides a sense of motive that each carried individually and corporately as Booths. What shines through the words stated to and shared by the media of the day demonstrates the dynamic leadership of each, as well as their individual and corporate motive to change the world through the work of The Salvation Army. The leadership of the three took The Salvation Army from the margins of American society to the mainstream of American culture in just a few short years. In many ways these women created the movement that has become a part of the very fabric that makes up contemporary Amer- ican society. Booth Women / 3 INTRODUCTION The American press has had many love affairs with outstanding women, but none any more ardent that those with Maud Ballington Booth, Emma Booth-Tucker and Evangeline Booth. Between 1887 and 1934, The Salvation Army in America was commanded solely by members of William Booth’s family, and in each succession—Maud and Ballington Booth (1887-1896), Emma and Frederick Booth-Tucker (1896-1904) and Evangeline Booth (1904-1934)—it was the lady sharing (or assuming) the command who gained the lion’s share of the publicity and won the hearts of the American people. In 1889, shortly after her arrival in America, Booth’s daughter-in-law, Maud, became a social celebrity. A lady of education, beauty and refinement, she won her way into the salons of New York’s upper classes, holding “draw- ing-room” meetings in the homes of the city’s social elite. These she followed up with public meetings in the mainstream churches in which she eloquently defended the Army’s seemingly bizarre methods and thereby raised its public profile to the point where it began to be respected (if not altogether respect- able). Taking advantage of the support she had garnered among the wealthy, and having established an auxiliary league to maintain it, Maud Booth began to implement what she considered to be her special mission—slum brigades, rescue homes and children’s shelters. These, along with other social outreach programs instituted by her husband, Ballington, marked the beginning of the Army’s dual mission in America, and set it on the road to its present-day prominence. R.G. Moyles / 4 When, in March 1896, Maud and Ballington Booth unfortunately decided to secede from The Salvation Army and establish their own religious organi- zation called The Volunteers of America, the American public, having given their hearts to Maud, found it difficult at first to warm to her successor, Emma Booth-Tucker. They found it easy to sympathize with her, for her tenure as co-commander was replete with misfortune and illness, but they did not begin to idolize her until about 1899 when, coincident with Maud’s waning popularity, Emma launched her “Dramatic Scenes of Love and Sorrow” stage production, featuring “stereopticon views” and living tableaux with music and narration depicting various aspects of The Salvation Army’s endeavors. Fea- tured on the stages of some of America’s largest theaters, touring more than 50 towns and cities, and drawing perhaps as many as 100,000 viewers, “Love and Sorrow” raised Emma’s profile to that comparable to a modern movie star. So when she died, tragically, in 1903, she was mourned across the nation and eulogized as a “true angel of mercy.” When her younger sister, Evangeline (“Eva”) Booth, came down from Can- ada to take command of the Army in the United States in 1904, Americans were delighted that yet another female Booth was in leadership—one who in some respects was quite like her sister and, in others, completely different. The appointment allowed for a continuance of the Booth charisma and yet intro- duced a new personality to keep an adoring public expectant of still further surprises from The Salvation Army. Eva Booth did not disappoint. For 30 years, until she became General of the Army, she won the hearts of Americans in many ways: by the sheer force of her personality, by her con- summate skill as an orator and actress, by the mystery she created as a single (very desirable) woman, by her ability to seize the moment and aid the com- munity (as in the San Francisco earthquake disaster and in World War I), and by her conspicuous presence at the center of American religious life. Though Maud Ballington Booth and her sister-in-law, Emma, both held the affections of the American people, it was Eva who became the living embodiment of The Salvation Army in America. What follows is a public record of America’s love affairs with the Booth women; that is, by selecting from among the many thousands of reports and personality vignettes in the American newspapers and magazines of the day, we can see just how popular (one might say “adored”) they were. For, like Booth Women / 5 the female movie stars of today, their every public appearance—their physical appearance, their personalities, their preaching styles, their cultivation of in- fluential patrons—was reported, described and analyzed. They were, each in her own time, among the most celebrated women in America. One must, of course, be aware that what reporters, editorialists and jour- nalists wrote was not always accurate, and sometimes not even truthful, but it was what most Americans read and believed to be true. One does not look for facts in these reports—though facts are certainly there—but for the myth-making process to which each Booth was subjected, making them, whether they liked it or not, prima donnas of the religious world. Out of it all, however, emerges this simple fact: Maud, Emma and Evangeline were three remarkable ladies, without whose dedication, personal charm and exception- al platform abilities The Salvation Army in America would not have achieved the remarkable popularity that it did enjoy (and, perhaps still does). Booth Women / 7 Maud Ballington Booth R.G. Moyles / 8 Maud Ballington Booth The Salvation Army Madonna Society has a new sensation; the cause of it is Mrs. Ballington Booth, the daugh- ter-in-law of Mikado [General] Booth, of the Army. She is a very lovely little woman, with the sweetest of smiles, the rosiest of cheeks, the most delightful voice, the most attractive manner and very magnetic.