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.

From the guide to the Ladies' Gleaning Circle of Newburyport records, Ladies' Gleaning Circle of Newburyport, 1801-1854, 1828-1854, (William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan)