page_title: American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
section_title: 1830 through 1860
hierarchical_section_title: American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions / Early history / 1830 through 1860
caption_attribution_description: English: Rufus Anderson (1796–1880) was an American minister who spent several decades organizing overseas missions for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He wrote many articles and several books. Engraving by J. C. Buttre from a daguerreotype.
context_page_description: The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was among the first American Christian missionary organizations. It was created in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College. In the 19th century it was the largest and most important of American missionary organizations and consisted of participants from Reformed traditions such as Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and German Reformed churches.
  After some secessions due to the slavery issue and the movement of New School Presbyterian-affiliated missionaries to the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, the ABCFM was left as a Congregationalist body after 1870. The American Board, as it was known continued to operate as a largely Congregationalist entity until the 1950s. In 1957, the Congregational Christian church merged with the German Evangelical and Reformed Church to form the United Church of Christ. As a part of the organizational merger associated with this new denomination, the ABCFM ceased independent existence and merged operations with other missions entities to form the United Church Board for World Ministries, an agency of the United Church of Christ.
context_section_description: By the 1830s, based on its experiences, the ABCFM prohibited unmarried people from entering the mission field.  They required couples to have been engaged at least two months prior to setting sail.  To help the missionaries find wives, they maintained a list of women who were "missionary-minded": "young, pious, educated, fit and reasonably good-looking." The policy against sending single women as missionaries was not strictly followed and was reversed in 1868.
  The secretary post was offered to Elias Cornelius in October 1831, but he became ill and died in February 1832. Rufus Anderson was the General Secretary of the Board from 1832 through the mid-1860s.  His legacy included administrative gifts, setting of policy, visiting around the world, and chronicling the work of the ABCFM in books.
  Between 1810 and 1840, the ABCFM sought firstly to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  At home and abroad, the Board and its supporters undertook every effort to exhort the evangelical community, to train a cadre of agents, and to send forth laborers into the mission field.  As a leader in the United Front and early federal American voluntary associations, the Board influenced the nineteenth-century mission movement.
caption: Rufus Anderson (1796–1880)
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