Catherine Booth

Catherine Booth (nee Mumford) is best known as the co-founder—along with her husband, William Booth—of the Salvation Army. She was eloquent and compelling in her speech, as well as articulate and devastatingly logical in her writing.

At first, Catherine and her husband had shared a ministry as traveling evangelists, but then she came into great demand as a preacher in her own right, especially among the affluent. A woman preacher was a rare phenomenon in a world where women had few civil rights, and no place in the professions. For over twenty years she defended the right of women to preach the gospel on the same terms as men. Many agree that no man of her era, including her husband, exceeded her in popularity or spiritual results.

The Booths had eight children. Two of their offspring later became Generals of the Salvation Army.