“In 1872 the UPNA [United Presbyterian Church of North America] General Assembly asked the women to take a greater interest in missions. In 1875 Sarah F. Hanna, a minister’s wife from Washington, Pennsylvania, became the first woman to address a Presbyterian assembly when she requested that the General Assembly sanction the organization of presbyterials and the founding of a woman’s missionary society. The commissioners answered affirmatively.” — Lois A. Boyd and R. Douglas Brackenridge, Presbyterian Women in America: Two Centuries of a Quest for Status, p. 15.
Sarah R. Foster Hanna is buried at Washington Cemetery, Washington, Pennsylvania.
Sketch of Sarah Foster Hanna (1905)