Evangeline Cory Booth

British-born humanitarian Evangeline Cory Booth (1865-1950) was one of the early commanders of the Salvation Army in the United States. Her work to help the nation's poor and her efforts to provide aid to U.S. soldiers in Europe during World War I won her the admiration of the American public. In 1934 she was elected general—the Salvation Army's highest post—culminating a lifetime of service to the religious charity.

Evangeline Cory Booth was a member of the founding family of the Salvation Army, a religious organization formed by her father with the aim of aiding the needy. In her role as commander of the Salvation Army in the United States, she gained acceptance for the group's work and ideals throughout American society, particularly after organizing assistance to soldiers during World War I. Her success in expanding the Salvation Army in the United States was apparent in the increased number of centers and followers during her tenure as well as her personal popularity among the public. In 1929 her work was recognized when she was elected to the post of General of the Salvation Army, making her the head of the entire organization.

Born into Salvation Army Family

Booth was born with the name Evelyne on December 25, 1865, in London, England, and was known to her family as Eva. She was one of the five children of William Booth, who in the year of Booth's birth, founded the East London Revival Society. The Society later took the name the Christian Mission before taking its final shape as the religious and charitable organization known as the Salvation Army. Like her siblings, Booth devoted her life to the work of the Army—to assist the poor and spread Christian values. She did not receive any formal education, but spent her adolescent years among the poor of London. Becoming a sergeant in the Army at the age of 15, she sold the organization's publication, War Cry, in the streets. When she was a bit older, her assignment included selling matches in the impoverished area of Marylebone while dressed in rags like the poor around her. Although all the Booth children went on to hold high posts in the Army, it was Evelyne Booth who would serve for the longest period of time and bring the Army to a new level of influence and popularity. As an adult, she changed her name to Evangeline to emphasize the spiritual solace she hoped to bring to the poor while at the same time alleviating their physical suffering.

In 1895, at the age of 30, Booth arrived in Canada to replace her brother Herbert as field commissioner of the Salvation Army in that country. Having worked in some very rough environments in England, Booth found conditions around the city of Toronto to be relatively placid, and she worried that there would not be much for her to do in Canada. But she soon found her calling in the frontier areas of the north such as the Yukon and Alaska, where gold prospectors had formed unruly boom towns. For nine years she traveled and preached among the settlers and the native people of the area in what she later called "one of the most arduous toils in my experience."

Expanded Army in United States

But not even her challenging work in Canada could prepare her for the scope of her next task. In 1903, her sister Emma, the commander of the United States Salvation Army, died in New York City. Emma had created a solid foundation for the Army in the United States; at the time of her death its assets were worth 1.5 million dollars and almost 700 stations had been founded across the country. She was mourned as one of the country's greatest citizens—an estimated 75,000 people came to pay respects to her open casket and a New York newspaper compared the size of her funeral procession to that of president Ulysses S. Grant. Evangeline was selected to serve as the new U.S. commander, but she was intimidated at the prospect of trying to live up to her sister's greatness. Her father encouraged her, however, telling her that he believed she was destined to a career of great accomplishment. His daughter ultimately fulfilled his predictions. From the time of her induction as American commander in 1904, until her retirement from the post in 1934, the organization more than doubled the number of stations, its property holdings grew to a value of 48 million dollars, and its bank accounts increased to 35 million dollars.

Once arriving in New York, Booth immediately began to address the extreme poverty she found among immigrants there. One of the main problems was hunger; she attacked this by establishing bread lines and programs to feed school children. The public was incredibly responsive to her calls for help and surprised her by exceeding her expectations when she held donation drives. Other public service projects she took on were providing emergency relief during disasters, providing aid to hospitals, and helping the elderly. By focusing on such activities, Booth won over support from people who had initially been wary of the Salvation Army's religious overtones. She also used her oratorical talent to speak out on other topics that crossed religious boundaries, including women's rights and the prohibition of alcohol.

Won Appreciation for Wartime Service

It was her efforts to use the Salvation Army to assist soldiers in World War I, however, that won Booth and her organization the lasting respect and appreciation of the American public. Under the leadership of Booth, the Salvation Army sent members to the front lines of the war in Europe, where they cared for the wounded, established canteens, and loaned money to soldiers. This wartime aid was considered so important by the U.S. government that it excused Salvation Army members from military duty so they could be free to continue their charitable work. The country showed its appreciation for the Salvation Army after the war by donating 15 million dollars during a special nationwide project to assist the organization. In addition, the group and its leader were praised by some of the leading political and military figures of the war, including presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, British prime minister Lloyd George, and U.S. generals John Joseph Pershing and Leonard Wood. Booth herself was recognized with a Distinguished Service Medal in October of 1919.

Elected General of Salvation Army

In the 1920s, the Salvation Army suffered a period of internal turmoil. After William Booth's death in 1912, his son Bramwell had become the second general, or head official, of the Salvation Army. While Evangeline was recovering from a throat operation in 1922, Bramwell Booth attempted to undermine her position by dividing the United States command into three separate groups, each with its own commander. Americans, however, were extremely supportive of the beloved U.S. commander and were quick to voice their disapproval of her brother's move. The general was forced to back off his position, but his reputation had been weakened. In 1929, the Salvation Army held its first election for the post of general and Bramwell Booth was replaced with Edward J. Higgins. When the next elections were held in 1934, Salvation Army members turned to the woman who had done so much to raise the image of the organization, electing Evangeline Booth to the position of general. She completed only one five-year term before retiring from the organization in 1939 at the age of 74. Having served the Salvation Army in three different nations during her long career, it seemed fitting that her last years were spent overseeing an organization that had grown to an international success with volunteers in more than 50 countries. Booth died in her adopted country of the United States at Hartsdale, New York, on July 17, 1950.

Further Reading

For more information see Wilson, P. W., General Evangeline Booth of the Salvation Army, Scribners, 1948. □

BOOTH, EVANGELINE CORY 1865-1950

Salvation army leader

Born with the Army

Evangeline Cory Booth was born in London on Christmas Day, 1865, the year that her father, William, a pawnshop worker, began the East London Revival Society, later called the Christian Mission and subsequently known as the Salvation Army. Her life would never veer from the mission of the Army, which followed from her father's Christian principles and compassion for the poor. She was named Evelyne and was called Eva. Years later, at the suggestion of Frances E. Willard of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, she took a longer, fuller name, choosing Evangeline because it suited her work of saving souls as well as feeding them. Evangeline devoted her life to the Army, as had her brothers, Ballington, Bramwell, and Herbert, and her sister, Emma, though she served longer than any of her siblings. At fifteen she became a sergeant in the Army and for the first time wore its characteristic bonnet. She sold War Cry in the street. At eighteen she worked in the Marylebone district of London, singing, selling matches, and dressed in rags in order to blend in with London's outcast poor. Although never formally educated, she would take the Salvation Army and its "active Christianity" through a world war to its greatest heights around the world.

Canada

At the age of thirty Booth left England for Canada to become field commissioner for the Canadian branch of the Salvation Army, which had begun in Canada in 1882 when two converts from England happened to meet in London, Ontario. By the time of Evangeline's arrival in 1895 to replace her brother Herbert (who was on his way to Australia to help establish the Army), the Army in Canada had some three hundred stations scattered through the country. Her experiences in Marylebone and in the "Torquay Wars," a Salvation Army clash with the citizens of Torquay, England, in 1888 that had seen Army members jailed for unlawful marches, made Canada at first seem too respectable to her. But she was soon traveling from Toronto to the gold boom towns such as Dawson City and to Alaska, where conditions were hard and plenty of souls needed converting. She worked among pioneers and native peoples alike for nine years "of the most arduous toils in my experience," as she was to write in 1928. But her greatest work lay ahead.

The United States

In late 1903 Emma Booth, Evangeline's sister and the commander of the Salvation Army in the United States, died in New York City. Seventy-five thousand people passed her open casket. The New York Daily News said that the funeral was the "largest held in the city for a woman, and that the crowd which followed her to the grave was the largest which ever attended any public funeral except that of General Grant." Evangeline had large shoes to fill, but her father insisted she could do it. "Your career has been a remarkable one, but destiny, unless I am mistaken, has something in store for you more wonderful still," he wrote to her a year later on the commencement of her term as commander. He proved to be a prophet. In 1904 the Salvation Army in New York held assets valued at $1.5 million. By the time of her retirement as commander in 1934, the organization possessed $48 million in property and $35 million in its accounts. The Army grew from 696 stations to more than 1,600. Startled by the poverty when she arrived in immigrant New York, she began bread lines and organized efforts to feed schoolchildren. She announced donation drives and exceeded her goals. The Salvation Army provided emergency disaster relief and helped hospitals and the elderly. Booth was a powerful orator who championed the causes of women's rights and the drive toward prohibition. She gained an acceptance for her charitable endeavors from those who did not believe in the Army's salvation of souls, thus broadening the base of support. In 1912 her father William Booth died in London and was succeeded by the second general of the Army, Bramwell Booth, her eldest brother.

France

World War I saw an expansion of Salvation Army activities and popularity. By the war's end both the group and Evangeline Booth were immensely popular, especially with anyone who had served in France during the war. The Army had held its International Congress in London in the summer of 1914 with forty thousand Salvationists from fifty countries attending. The war began shortly thereafter, and Booth began coordinating the Salvation Army's activities to support the Allies and then the Americans once the United States had entered the war in 1917. The Army trained men and women to serve at or near the front lines, opening canteens and helping with the wounded. The Army gained great support with a program of lending money to troops unconditionally. The Salvation Army was seen as so valuable that many Salvationists were excused from their military duty in order to continue their work for the organization. When the war ended, the Army and Booth received nothing but praise from such dignitaries as General Pershing, British prime minister Lloyd George, President Woodrow Wilson, former president Theodore Roosevelt, and Gen. Leonard Wood. An enormous postwar program to aid the Salvation Army brought in $15 million. In October 1919 Evangeline Booth was given a Distinguished Service Medal by President Wilson. The Army had never been so popular on so many fronts. Evangeline Booth remained commander of her father's Army in the United States for another fifteen years after the war.

General Booth

In the 1920s the Army was marked by political infighting. In 1922 Bramwell Booth had tried to remove Evangeline as commander after she had an operation on her throat. His plan was to divide the U.S. Salvation Army into three commands with separate commanders. The move caused an uproar among the people of America, and Bramwell had to take the defensive quickly. The organization's confidence in General Booth wavered, and in 1929 he was replaced. Edward J. Higgins then became the first elected general of the Salvation Army. Throughout the controversy Evangeline Booth's popularity continued, and in 1934 she was elected general of the Salvation Army, a position she held for one term of five years. She retired in 1939 and subsequently died in 1950 at the age of eighty-five. She had traveled a long way from selling her father's newspaper on the streets of London. She had met presidents, received honorary degrees from universities, and been given the Vasa Gold Medal by the king of Sweden. But her triumph was in her service. Her words in a 1914 interview summed up her life's work: "I'm for the man who, after we picked him up from the gutter, falls again and again. God help him, he is only weak and very human. After many struggles he may finally win … Oh, the task that is set for us, and ways, through God, in which we can help!"

Source:

P. W. Wilson, General Evangeline Booth of the Salvation Army (New-York: Scribners, 1948).

Evangeline Cory Booth 1865-1950, general of the Salvation Army , b. England; daughter of William Booth . At the age of 17, she began evangelistic preaching. She was field commissioner of the Salvation Army in London for five years, commander of the Army in Canada from 1895 to 1904, and commander in the United States from 1904 to 1934. Booth was general of the international Salvation Army from 1934 to 1939. Her works include Love is All (1925), Songs of the Evangel (1927), and Woman (1930). See also Booth , family.

Bibliography: See biography by P. W. Wilson (1948).