Maximize our missions Mui tsai, missionaries and material representation

This study sheds light on the contributions of American Protestant missionaries in parlaying their experiences gleaned from overseas Chinese assignments in establishing domestic mission programs in America aimed at saving Chinese girls. In doing so, female missionaries built institutions and launched social programs that used the mui tsai (Chinese domestic servants), their experiences, and their transformation from heathen to Christian as a material representation of the success and necessity of domestic and overseas Chinese missionary ventures. In doing so, missionary women constructed national and transnational networks armed with the goal of maximizing their missions and Christianizing China. Although this study primarily analyzes Presbyterian and Methodist Episcopalian female-operated organizations, in the city of San Francisco---there is no question that many Protestant denominations followed the same pattern in countless American cities from 1870 to 1920