Bridgman, Eliza Jane [Gillett] (1805-1871)

Pioneer educational missionary in China

A school principal, Gillett had wanted to be a missionary since childhood. After the death of her widowed mother, she was free to apply to the Board of Missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Appointed a missionary teacher, she sailed to China in 1844. She immediately met Elijah Coleman Bridgman of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, who believed her to be God’s answer to his prayers for a wife. They married, she transferred to the Congregational Church, and the Bridgmans began work in Canton. They adopted two small girls, and after the Bridgmans had transferred to Shanghai, Eliza began a girls’ school that became the first Protestant school for girls there. Her successful school work continued until 1862, when her health broke following the death of her husband. After a furlough in America during which she was run over by a sled, she resumed work in Peking in 1864. There she opened Bridgman Academy, the predecessor to the Woman’s College of Yenching University. Bridgman was widely acknowledged to be an exceptional teacher, and she gave money liberally to Congregational missions in China. After returning to Shanghai to help open a new school, she died and was buried beside her husband.

Dana L. Robert, “Bridgman, Eliza Jane (Gillett),” in Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, ed. Gerald H. Anderson (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 1998), 90.

This article is reprinted from Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions, Macmillan Reference USA, copyright © 1998 Gerald H. Anderson, by permission of Macmillan Reference USA, New York, NY. All rights reserved.

Bibliography

Digital Primary

Bridgman, Eliza Jane. Daughters of China; or Sketches of Domestic Life in the Celestial Empire. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1853.

______(ed.). The Pioneer of American Missions in China:The Life And Labors Of Elijah Coleman Bridgman. New York: A.D.F. Randolph, 1864.

Digital Secondary

Annual Report of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Presented at the Meeting held at Cleveland, Ohio, October 1-3, 1861. Boston: T.R. Marvin & Son Press, 1861.

Primary

Bridgman, Eliza Jane. Autobiography (handwritten). Yale Divinity School Archives. New Haven, CT, n.d.

__________. Daughters of China; or Sketches of Domestic Life in the Celestial Empire. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1853.

__________. Journals (handwritten). Yale Divinity School Archives. New Haven, CT, 1856; 1865.

__________ (ed.) The Pioneer of American Missions in China:The Life And Labors Of Elijah Coleman Bridgman. New York: A.D.F. Randolph, 1864.

Bridgman, Elijah C. Glimpses of Canton: The Diary of Elijah C. Bridgman, 1834-1838. New Haven, CT: Yale Divinity School Library, 1998.

Secondary

Annual Report of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Presented at the Meeting held at Cleveland, Ohio, October 1-3, 1861. Boston: T.R. Marvin & Son Press, 1861.

Blodget, Henry. “The Late Mrs. E.C. Bridgman.” In The Chinese Recorder 4 (March 1872): 261-3.

Lazich, Michael C. E.C. Bridgman (1801-1861), America’s First Missionary to China. Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen Press, 2000.

Robert, Dana L. American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and Practice. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997.

Links

Dana L. Robert’s article from the BDCM appears also in the online Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity.

http://www.bdcconline.net/en/stories/b/bridgman-eliza-jane-gillett.php

Portrait

Bridgman, Eliza J. (ed.) and Elijah C. Bridgman. The Pioneer of American Missions in China:The Life And Labors Of Elijah Coleman Bridgman. New York: A.D.F. Randolph, 1864.