Doing the Word

In the pantheon of publications related to womens educational history, there is little research concerning womens education in the context of the Baptist church. In Doing the Word: Southern Baptists Carver School of Church Social Work and Its Predecessors, 19071997, T. Laine Scales and Melody Maxwell provide a complete history of this unique institution. By exploring the dynamic evolution of womens education through the lens of the womens training program for missions and social work at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the authors show how the institution both expanded womens education and leadership and also came into tension with changes in the Southern Baptist Convention, ultimately resulting in its closing in 1997. A touchstone for womens studies and church history alike, Doing the Word reopens a lost chapter in the evolution of womens leadership during the twentieth centurya tumultuous period in which the Carver School, under significant pressure to reverse course, sought to expand the roles of women in leading the church.