Good Intentions Gone Awry: Emma Crosby And The Methodist Mission On The Northwest Coast

Book Summary

Good Intentions Gone Awry chronicles the experiences of a late 19th-century missionary wife. Emma Crosby's letters to family and friends in Ontario shed light on a critical period. They mirror the hardships and isolation she faced as well as her assumptions about the supremacy of Euro-Canadian society and culture. The authors critically represent Emma's sincere convictions towards mssion work and the running of the Crosby Girl's home (later a residential school). Good Intentions Gone Awry chronicles the experiences of a missionary wife through the letters of Emma Crosby to her family and friends in Ontario. Her husband, Thomas Crosby, came to Fort Simpson, near present-day Prince Rupert, in 1874 to set up a mission among the Tsimshian people. The authors critically examine Emma's sincere convictions about mission work and the running of the Crosby Girl's Home, later a residential school, while at the same time exposing them as a product of the times in which she lived. They also examine the roles of Native and mixed-race intermediaries who made possible the feats attributed to Thomas Crosby.

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