Esther Pritchard

Life & Legacy

Esther Pritchard (née, Wood; after first marriage, Tuttle; after second marriage, Pritchard; January 26, 1840 – August 6, 1900) was a 19th-century American minister and editor. Pritchard was the daughter of a minister of the Society of Friends. She was one of the leading preachers of the Friends' Society in the United States, and was the Woman's Christian Temperance Union's Superintendent of the Department of Systematic Giving. Pritchard edited for some years the Friend's Missionary Advocate, and was a teacher in the Chicago Training School for Missions. Her husband's removal from Chicago to the pastorate of the Friends church, Kokomo, Indiana, severed her connection with the school and left her free to push the special work of her department. Seventeen State Unions subsequently adopted the department, while outside the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, ten Woman's Missionary Boards were influenced to create a similar agency.