Mary Scranton

Life

She was born in Belchertown, Massachusetts. Her birthday is generally given as December 9, 1832, though some sources record it as November 9. Her maiden name was Benton. The Benton family had been Methodists in New England for generations, and her father, younger brother, and nephew were all Methodist ministers. After the death of her husband, William T. Scranton, in 1872, she served as a secretary of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

In 1884, at the age of fifty-two, she was appointed a missionary to Korea by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. In June 1885 she arrived in Korea with her only son, William Scranton, and his wife. To distinguish her from her daughter-in-law, Koreans called her "Mrs. Scranton the Elder" (daebuin, 大夫人). The name is also said to reflect the fact that she was a mother figure to many people. At the end of 1898 she went to Europe on furlough, returning in February 1900. The following year, in declining health, she went to the United States, but she later returned to Korea and resumed her work. She died on October 8, 1909, at her home in Sangdong, Seoul, and in accordance with her wishes was buried at the Yanghwajin Foreign Missionary Cemetery.

Ministry and Achievements

• Founding of Ewha Haktang: On May 31, 1886, she began teaching a single student in her own home in Jeong-dong, Seoul. Recruiting students was difficult at first because of the prevailing belief that girls did not need an education and a general wariness of Westerners. Her first students are said to have been abandoned children and former concubines. In February 1887 the royal court bestowed the name "Ewha Haktang." According to the school, the name was conferred by King Gojong, while sources of the Korean Methodist Church state that Empress Myeongseong presented the name plaque through Kim Yun-sik, President of the Office for Foreign Affairs. Scranton served as the school's first principal until May 1890.
• Evangelism among women: Because women missionaries were few and the separation of the sexes was strictly observed, she trained Korean women evangelists known as "Bible women" (jeondo buin) and worked alongside them. A report from 1898 records that eight Bible women were working with her. She also founded a women's Bible school.
• Founding of schools and churches: She established girls' schools, including the Dalseong Day School and Gongok Girls' School in Seoul and the Samil Elementary School in Suwon (the predecessor of today's Maehyang Girls' Information High School). She is also known to have assisted church and hospital work in the Sangdong, Dongdaemun, and Aeogae areas. Some scholars hold that she was also involved in establishing Bogu Yeogwan, a hospital exclusively for women.

Influence on the Korean Church

Ewha Haktang developed into today's Ewha Girls' High School and Ewha Womans University. The independence activist Yu Gwan-sun was among its students. The girls' schools, women's churches, and Bible woman system she established laid the foundation for women's evangelism and the development of women's leadership in early Korean Methodist history. For women whose activities outside the home were restricted, the church and the school became places where they could learn and gather.

Assessment

She is widely regarded as a pioneer of women's education in Korea. A study published in the journal of the Korean Society of Church History argues that her schools, hospital work, and women's churches opened a "women's space" for Korean women during the enlightenment (gaehwa) period. The same study contends that this became a catalyst for the emergence of feminist consciousness in Korea. Although she introduced Western-style education, she reportedly hoped that her students would become "better Korean women" who took pride in their Korean heritage rather than simply imitating foreign ways. No significant criticism of her was identified in the sources consulted for this article.