Warner Article - People's History

First, an anecdote that some may find interesting:

Reading Warner's article on American Methodist women reminded me of a book my sister sent me about the history of some of our family ancestors, which contains several references to Methodism in the 1700s and 1800s. One excerpt is from my great-great-great-great-great-grandmother Mary Grimes Montgomery, who writes of a conversion experience in a Methodist class meeting in Ohio in 1803 with a pastor and two other women. Her testimony is quite similar to others we have read in class, with references to camp-meetings, seeking "a greater work of grace" night and day, and that she eventually "experienced the blessing of perfect love." Her obituary is also full of references to how she raised her children as "professors of Christian faith" and that she was a "strong advocate of the religion of Jesus Christ." Many of her grandchildren and children were Methodist preachers so her advocacy clearly held an important place in that family. 

In relation to Warner's article, this made me think of the incredibly important place that women have held in Methodist history. We have read from several sources that women outnumbered men in congregations and that women held vital roles in the religious life of a family, etc. Many of the women who did the important work towards women's ordination and inclusion are listed in the article, but so many more exist who did work that is unremembered now, acting for all intents and purposes as ministers and as pastors but without any of the recognition or place in our history books. It's understandable that we must focus on these larger-than-life figures when we study history- by necessity of the fact that we have such few written records for anyone other than those key figures. I'm interested, however, by the concept of a people's history, or history from below, which focuses on common people rather than leaders, and what this might look like in a Methodist context.

Here's a link to the above-mentioned book on Google books: 

https://books.google.com/books?id=8Gs6AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA32#v=onepage&q&f=false