Ann Hasseltine Judson portrait, circa 1842-1880
Permanent ID:
14315Image Description:
Ann Hasseltine Judson (1789-1826) and her husband Adoniram, were some of the first American foreign missionaries. They traveled with their family to India, and then Burma, where her husband was imprisoned for seventeen months during the Anglo-Burmese War. During this time, she camped outside the prison and lobbied for her husband’s release and wrote about the difficulties of mission life and detailed descriptions of her tragic miscarriages and the deaths of her children. She was one of the first Protestants to translate scriptures into Burmese and Thai. In 1826, she died from smallpox in Burma. Her letters home were published in periodicals such as The American Baptist Magazine and republished after her death as devotional writings, making both her and Adoniram celebrities in America. This fanciful engraving depicts Judson in an exotic landscape, with flowers in her hair. She looks to the sky, inspired, with her hand still holding her Bible. It is unlikely that Judson ever lived in such splendor during her travels through southeast Asia, but engraver Frederick Halpin created a commercially attractive depiction of an American saint.Inscription:
J.B. WANDESFORDE / F. HALPINANN HASSELTINE JUDSON
(Beneath Portrait)