In the mid-1800s, as mission work expanded in scope, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions began to actively recruit women missionaries. The goal of the missions-to create self-sustaining churches-required not only pastors, but nurses, doctors, and teachers. While ministers' wives and even single women had long gone to work in missions, the ABCFM formalized women's involvement by establishing the Women's Board of Missions in 1868.

The Women's Board was responsible for recruiting and training women missionaries. The board had offices on the seventh floor of Congregational House, five floors up from where the Congregational Library & Archives sits today. In our present-day archives, we have a collection of pamphlets that were used to encourage women to become missionaries. Glancing through the papers allows us to eavesdrop on a conversations between women that happened over one hundred years ago.