Helen Barrett Montgomery

Helen Barrett Montgomery (July 31, 1861 – October 19, 1934) was an American social reformer, educator and writer. In 1921 she was elected as the first woman president of the Northern Baptist Convention (and of any religious denomination in the United States). She had long been a delegate to the Convention and a policymaker. In 1893 she helped found a chapter of the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union in Rochester, and served as president until 1911, nearly two decades. In 1899 Montgomery was the first woman elected to the Rochester School Board and any public office in the city, 20 years before women could vote.

Montgomery was an activist for women's and overseas missions and a successful fundraiser; in 1910-1911 she raised one million dollars by her national speaking tour (the funds raised were equivalent to $23.7 million in 2010), used chiefly to support colleges for women in China. In 1921 as president of the Women's American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society, she gave their "Jubilee" contributions of more than $450,000 to the National Baptist Convention. In 1924 she was the first woman to publish a translation of the New Testament from the original Greek. Living mostly in Rochester, New York, she was influential in national and international progressive movements.

Since 1995, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School has held an annual conference on Women in Church and Society, named in honor of Helen Barrett Montgomery. In addition, the School is establishing an endowed fund in her name for its Program for the Study of Women and Gender in Church and Society.