0.15 3.5 the administration of mary hill davis, 1906-20  (Page 3/6)

The WMU also introduced a Manual of Methods in 1917 which the BWMW taught at encampments and training institutes. These sessions included lectures, drills in parliamentary law, and exams, the successful completion of which entitled one to an Efficiency Certificate. WMU yearbooks designated a theme for each month's mission study and a special object of prayer; after 1917, a Bible study topic was listed. Standardization also modified the names of Baptist women's groups: "Baptist Women Mission Workers" was discarded in 1919 in favor of "Woman's Missionary Union," a designation the SBC women had borrowed from Fannie Davis's 1880 organization of Texas Baptist State Convention women. Other states, at all levels of organization, adopted the same label. The initials "WMU" became synonymous with Baptist women.

These carefully explained standards and specifically delineated goals created a smoothly run network wherein information and currency could be passed forward and backward from the SBC Executive Board to a WMU circle within a local church. The Southern Baptist boards would request from the WMU a certain annual amount for specific projects and for a percentage of their total budget; the WMU added the cost of its own projects to that amount and apportioned it to the states. The BWMW added to their WMU total the amount requested of them by the BGCT and the costs of their discrete commitments, then apportioned that total to the districts. Districts divided their requests and passed them on proportionally to associational auxiliaries, who allotted their totals to women in specific churches. As large urban congregations developed, the plan was enlarged to include subdividing a congregation into circles that met three times a month separately and once for a churchwide program. Separate collections were also taken during the year for specific projects at each administrative level. (State districts and associational auxiliaries functioned primarily as communication facilitators. Meetings were held at those levels, but projects rarely originated there.)

A competitive spirit developed over a group's meeting or exceeding its apportionment. Following the WMU meeting in St. Louis in 1913, Mary Davis reported that "Texas advanced a step, taking third place in the list of States, Virginia and Georgia only outstripping us, but we serve notice right now that we are in the race to win, and are going to do our best to go ahead next year." BS, October 16, 1913, p. 14. This spirit prevailed in 1919 when the SBC requested the WMU to "shift its financial plans" to join in a five-year campaign to raise $75,000,000 to retire denominational debts and to enlarge all its programs. Norman W. Cox, ed., Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1958), II, 1518. This article on WMU was written by Juliette Mather, Young People's Secretary, WMU-SBC, 1921-48. The

southwide WMU accepted $15,000,000 as its quota, as did Texas. The BWMW met that year in Houston and Addie Beddoe reported $385,844.19 in receipts. In view of the Seventy-five Million Campaign she suggested that Texas women aim for $635,000 in 1920. No sooner had the campaign gotten underway with an intense Victory Week promotion than a financial depression unsettled businesses and banks all over the country; prices dropped on cotton, cattle, and oil. When the women met in El Paso in 1920, however, they had not only met their goal, they exceeded it by $60,000. The Texas WMU reported gifts of $708,123.99 in 1920 and over $906,000 in 1921. Although the Seventy-five Million Campaign eventually netted the SBC only about $58,000,000, WMU overpaid its quota by more than $25,000. See A. Hunt, p. 106.