Una Porter: Missionary Work in Asia, Women and Agency
Dr Una Beatrice Porter, 1900-1996, was a well-known philanthropist and missionary. The daughter of Frederick John Cato, co-founder of the first chain of grocery stores in Australia, Porter was raised in the Methodist Church witnessing her father’s own philanthropic missions in Arnhem Land, Fiji and India. By 1925 she had become a prominent member in the Young Women’s Christian Association (or YWCA). In 1946, Una married James Porter, an ex-Air Force officer and long-time friend, and the couple never had children. Motivated by her ill niece, Porter became a medical student at the University of Melbourne in 1933, specialising in psychiatry. She had a successful career in hospitals and private practice and was instrumental in the establishment of their psychiatric clinics. In that same year, Porter was elected vice-president of the YWCA, later going on to be world president from 1963 to 1967. During this period, she travelled extensively throughout Europe, America and Asia. After her retirement, Porter continued to donate to many community organisations, hospitals and universities. The University of Melbourne Archives is fortunate to have Una Porter’s extensive personal collections, which include her work as a member and president of the YWCA. This exhibition highlights items from Una Porter’s 1926 trip to India, investigating how this formative experience shaped Porter’s role as a woman in mission work. Ultimately, this exhibition will briefly investigate the expression of female agency by 20th century missionaries in the Asia Pacific.
Mission work permeated the Pacific throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, with churches in America, England, Australia and others sending missionaries to the ‘uncivilised’ and un-Christianised nations of the Asia Pacific region. The division of the Asia Pacific by imperial and racial hierarchies features heavily in the narrative of colonial missionary work and defined the nature of early Australian engagement with the Asian region. The superiority of Christianity, was a concept central to the work and experiences of missionaries. Female missionaries used the idea of being an “instrument in God’s work” to create a purpose for themselves and their work in the heavily masculine space of Christian mission work. Una Porter demonstrates this notion in the actions of her own life, presenting a story that details not only her personal experiences, but the multi-layered experiences of Australian female missionaries in the Asia Pacific region.
In this diary-like extract from a letter written by Porter in 1930, she reflects on her 1926 trip to India with her parents. In the letter, Porter explains that “much evil is still practised in the name of religion” in India, and in relaying her horror at some of her experiences during this trip Porter villainises the Hindu religion, particularly in the lives of local women. She describes witnessing a young woman sat in the centre of a circle of “a dozen male relatives,” swinging around at “such a pace it seemed her neck must snap” until she fainted. Porter explains that she had to turn away as she felt “sick” at the sight of this woman then having her hair “slashed” and being bathed in the Tank of the Golden Lily, pictured here in a photograph from Porter’s album, which she described as a “scum covered pool.” Her heart “ached for the suffering” of the young woman who Porter explains had “failed to please her husband in some way,” revealing some of the opinions that Porter had towards her perception of the treatment of women in India. Clearly quite moved, Porter increased her participation in the missionisation of Asia following this trip into the rest of her life and career. Her experience was not unique, with many women driven by a desire to be a useful instrument of God partaking in mission work, particularly aspiring to “rescue” Asian women from their oppressive societies. Both the letter and the image featured in this exhibition are key examples of these sentiments, demonstrating the attitudes female missionaries had towards the women of the Asia Pacific.
Much scholarship on the work of missionaries highlights the involvement of women in the educational and medical fields as more important and influential than the evangelical work of their male colleagues. The separation of male and female spheres in missionary work was quite prominent, however, with men preoccupied as the principal religious leaders, mission work introduced an unique range of opportunity and freedom that had not been afforded to women in their Australian religious communities. Australian female missionaries made substantial contributions to public health, social welfare and education whilst overseas, and many of the personal stories of these women features the achievement of career positions and responsibilities that would not have been afforded to them in their local context. Una Porter herself was a medical doctor, and although she did not work in her profession outside of Australia, her participation in mission work as a leader and philanthropist is indicative of the opportunities she had as a woman in overseas mission work.
After her time as president of the YWCA, Una Porter made a speech in which she addressed the purpose of the organisation, and the purpose of gender in mission work. The idea of a united religious force for women and girls is also perpetuated in other female missionary organisations, expressing not only the importance of a dedication to God’s work, but the equality of men and women in performing God’s work. The notion that women did not need men as intermediaries with God or serving in the Christian name was a central motivator to the mission work of women. In her speech, Porter expresses that the only struggle faced by a missionary in the field that she refuses to address is the struggle between men and women for power in their work. Porter explains that she feels “so strongly that we are both part of God’s creation,” and claims that the “Woman Struggle” is essentially a waste of energy. The sentiments that Porter expresses in this speech demonstrates how the agency that many female missionaries enacted was complex and multilayered, utilising unique opportunities and freedom in the name of God’s work, but remaining true to traditional gender roles.
In interpreting these items to tell a story beyond that of Una Porter’s life as a female missionary, this exhibition raises questions of truth in history and the nature of archives. Lynn Hunt discusses how the variability of interpretations leads to doubt in historical truth, a point critical to keep in mind during archival work such as this exhibition as how objects are presented and contextualised heavily influences the story they tell.