Ladies' Gleaning Circle of Newburyport

The Ladies' Gleaning Circle of Newburyport, Mass., was a missionary aid society with close ties to the Massachusetts Missionary Society, one of the earliest and most influential of the nineteenth-century home missionary societies. The principal activities of the Ladies' Gleaning Circle consisted of gathering donations of money, clothing, and various items -- especially books -- and sending these to worthy missionaries and their families in the West. The Circle chose their missionaries based upon recommendations received from the West.