Adele M. Fielde

Biography

Adelia Field was born in East Rodman, New York on March 30, 1839. Her parents were Leighton Field and Sophia (Tiffany) Field. At age sixteen she started using the pen name Adele M. Fielde, and was later baptized and registered under that name. She graduated from New York State Normal School in Albany in 1860. From 1883 to 1885, she studied medicine at the Medical College of Pennsylvania. Fielde also studied biology for two years at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, but did not receive a formal degree.

At age 27, her fiancé, Reverend Cyrus A. Chilcott (Chinese: 周谷), went to Thailand to engage in missionary work among the local Chinese, and she followed, only to find he had passed several weeks before her arrival in July 1886. She never married. Fielde stayed on as a missionary in Bangkok until 1872. From February 1873 to 1889, she was a missionary in the Chinese port city of Swatow, except for a break of two years from 1883 to 1885 in the United States. While in Swatow, Fielde preached not in English but Teochew dialect and did not teach the “domestic-skills” curriculum common in women’s mission schools. Instead, Fielde promoted education she felt was suited to each convert, as well as campaigning against foot-binding, slavery, and repressive marriages. Field's later career has led to the assumption that she left her religious beliefs behind, while some scholars view her work as an extension of her faith.

In 1894, after the defeat of the women's suffrage amendment to the New York State constitution, Fielde was one of six prominent suffragists who founded the League for Political Education. She worked with other suffragists to establish the Volunteer Committee with the goal of targeting New York society, using her wealth and status she established as a missionary in China to facilitate her efforts.