Tag: WCTU

Frances Willard – Forgotten Feminist

Often when we think about the temperance movement it’s limited to Prohibition, mobsters, and the roaring twenties. Temperance was an idea that was tried and failed in the sense that it didn’t work well for the country resulting in the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment via the Twenty-first Amendment. Because it is an idea that came and went, it is easy to forget the individuals who made their mark in history through the temperance movement. One of these individuals is Frances Willard.

But Frances Willard was much more than a temperance worker. She was a feminist and an advocate for women’s rights in the broadest sense. Her motto: ‘Everything is not in the Temperance Movement, but the Temperance Movement should be in everything‘  was her way of rallying a large number of women all across the country to work for reform in many different areas, but always with temperance at the core.

The Temperance movement was born out of the Second Great Awakening of religious fervor in America in the early nineteenth century. One of the people who found a renewed spirituality and a call to serve was Josiah Willard. In 1841, in order to study for the ministry under Charles Finney, Josiah and his wife Mary took their two children, Oliver and two year old Frances, and moved to Oberlin Ohio. He and Mary both studied at Oberlin College for the next four years until Josiah’s health required a move to the country.

In 1846, the family moved to a farm outside Janesville, Wisconsin, where Oliver, Frances, and younger sister Mary, born in Oberlin, spent 13 happy years. Frances’s talents began to emerge during this time. Mary was more artistic; Oliver played “fort” and wanted to explore; but Frances wanted to play “city” and organize. Their mother taught them at home until public schools were available in the area and was aware of and promoted each of her children’s strengths. When Frances was 17 she went to the Milwaukee Seminary where her aunt taught. In 1858, the family moved to Evanston Illinois where Frances attended the Evanston College for Ladies and graduated valedictorian in 1859.

Between 1859 and 1868, Frances taught school at various places before returning to the Evanston College for Ladies as the President, making her the first woman college president in the United States. When the college merged with Northwestern University in 1871, she became the Dean of Women. This was an ideal position for Frances to use her considerable organizational skills, but it was short lived. She resigned in 1874 after having her influence and responsibilities greatly reduced by the President of Northwestern, Charles Fowler. These may have been typical university political struggles, but they were complicated by the fact that Frances had previously been engaged to Fowler and broken the engagement. This experience left Frances distraught and at a loss as to how to proceed in her life. She had no desire to go back to one small schoolhouse after the other teaching. She also believed that God would use her.

Willard with Anna Gordon and Mary Willard.

These years had been difficult for Frances in other ways as well. Both her father and her younger sister Mary died of tuberculosis and her brother Oliver began to drink heavily and gamble. She found herself without work and her mother’s sole source of support, so after leaving the University, she decided to go on the lecture tour for the cause of temperance. Frances was tireless, over the next ten years she averaged 30,000 miles and 400 lectures a year. Never domestically inclined, this suited the independent non-conformist side of Frances, but she was also ambitious.

In 1874, Frances became the corresponding secretary of the newly formed Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the President of the Chicago chapter, and head of the WCTU publications committee. During her lectures, Frances also began to speak in favor of women’s suffrage. Just as Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony found in the abolition society, this created a conflict with the leadership, in Frances’s case Annie Wittenmyer, the first WCTU president.

This is where Frances’s brilliance as a strategist began to show. As corresponding secretary, no problem or concern was too small to receive a letter from her. Through her travels and letter writing, with the help of long-time companion Anna Gordon, she made personal contacts all over the country. When the time was right, in 1879, Frances ran for president of the national WCTU, and won. She held this position until her death in 1898.

Many women in the WCTU were conservative and involved in the fight against alcohol because they believed that indulgence was sinful and because of the impact it had on the family. The fight for temperance was seen as fighting for the home, family, and motherhood thus an acceptable cause for women to work outside their homes, but many saw suffrage as too radical. Frances had the same values with regard to alcohol; she had seen its devastating effects in her brother’s life, but she also believed that the way for women to affect change in their domestic lives was to have the vote. She insisted that women not view themselves as the “weaker sex” and that they had a place in politics.

Wittenmyer had insisted on uniformity among the chapters of the WCTU. Frances preferred a more liberal approach. As long as the chapters took the temperance pledge and paid their dues they had the flexibility to work for the causes appropriate to their location. “Do everything,” was her motto. This led to work in many different areas, such as free school lunches, 8 hour work days, anti-rape laws, protection for children against abuse, and work relief for the poor. Although some thought that too broad a focus would fracture the organization, Frances’s organizational skills, her intense travel schedule, and prolific correspondence prevented this from happening.

Frances Willard was the first woman to be represented in the Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol.

Frances Willard’s profound belief that she was called by God for this task, her excellent speaking skills, and even her feminine demeanor made her and her message acceptable to some who rejected the message of other suffragists of the time. At the time of her death in 1898, the WCTU had grown to approximately 150,000 women, making it the largest women’s organization in the world at the time, and making Frances one of the most famous women in the nation. She truly had an impact on the fight for women’s rights and should be remembered for her considerable contribution.

Frances was also a prolific writer. Some of her works were
• Woman and temperance, or the work and workers of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, 1883
• Glimpses of fifty years: the Autobiography of an American Woman, 1889
• How to Win: A Book for Girls, 1886
• Woman in the Pulpit, 1888
• Do everything: a Handbook for the World’s White Ribboners, 1895
• A Wheel within a Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle, 1895

Resources
Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists by Jean H. Baker
Glimpses of fifty years: the Autobiography of an American Woman, 1889
The Beautiful Life of Frances E. Willard by Anna Adams Gordon

Carrie Nation – Saintly or Insane?

“When I first started out in this crusade, I was called crazy and a ‘freak’ by my enemies, but now they say: ’No, Carry Nation, you are not crazy, but you are sharp. You started out to accomplish something and you did. You are a grafter. It is the money you are after.”

Carry A. Nation

Carrie Nation (also spelled Carry) is usually portrayed with a hatchet in her hand. She is best known for marching into saloons, declaring that she was there to save people from the evil of drink, and proceeding to smash anything breakable in the establishment. She never showed any remorse for this destruction of property, although she did pay the fines that were a result of her arrests. In fact, when she was initially charged with “defacing public property”, she stated that she had not defaced it, but destroyed it. Carrie believed that she was doing God’s work and she was good at it.

Born Carrie Amelia Moore in Kentucky on November, 25 1846, she had an inconsistent childhood. At the beginning of her autobiography she describes what seems like a happy childhood, but her memories are not all happy. She suffered from poor health and the family had financial setbacks. At least one source says that Carrie’s mother suffered from delusions. She doesn’t discuss this in her book. In fact, she doesn’t say much about her mother at all. She was often left in the care of Betsy, one of the family’s slaves or would stay with the other slaves watching them spin the flax that was grown on the farm.

Carrie was a serious child and interested in religion from an early age. When she was 10 years old, she attended a church meeting with her father. Afterward during the invitation she “began to weep bitterly” and felt compelled to go forward. “I could not have told anyone what I wept for, except it was a longing to be better.”  The next day she was baptized and emerged from the water without saying a word. “I felt that I couldn’t speak, for fear of disturbing the peace that passeth understanding.”

Although Carrie was young when she was baptized, she didn’t simply take on the theology of others. As an avid reader of many different things (poetry, history, Josephus, mythology, etc.), she devoted herself to reading and understanding the Bible as well. She had “doubts as to whether the Bible was the work of God or man” and thought “It often seemed to be a contradiction.” In spite of this she studied it diligently and ultimately used the Bible as the justification for her actions against the sale of alcohol.

In 1855, the family moved from Kentucky to Missouri just before the breakout of hostilities between Kansas and Missouri over slavery. When the Civil War broke out, they moved to Texas with their slaves, but left them there and returned to Missouri. Carrie spent time nursing soldiers and felt that the experience was something that all young women should do. The thought of not being useful was anathema to her. Throughout her life she would look for ways to help those less fortunate than she.

One group of people that Carrie would work to help and which she related to strongly were wives and children of alcoholics. She didn’t just oppose alcohol based on theological reasons. She was intimately acquainted with the damage it could do to a family. In the 1860s, Carrie fell in love with Dr. Charles Gloyd. Charles was teaching school, saving money to begin his medical practice, and boarded with the Moore family. Carrie’s parents disapproved of the match because of Gloyd’s drinking so Carrie and Charles would communicate by leaving notes in his copy of Shakespeare. Eventually they went ahead and were married in November of 1867.

It wasn’t long before Charles’ drinking became a problem, so when Carrie became pregnant she moved back to her parent’s home. She had strong feelings about children inheriting alcoholism or other negative traits, but it’s not clear in her autobiography whether or not she really means traits that are passed on or just exposure to a negative atmosphere and negative thoughts from the mother. She gave birth to a daughter, Charlien, in September of 1868 just six months before Charles died.

Throughout her life Carrie would give much of her money to those less fortunate than she, but at this time her focus had to be on supporting herself, Charlien, and her mother-in-law. Although she taught school until she was dismissed over a disagreement with the board, it was difficult for a woman to support herself alone during this time and Carrie finally decided to pray for a husband. She soon met David Nation and they married in 1874. From the time they were married until 1889 they did a variety of things to support themselves without success including the purchase of a cotton plantation in Texas. David worked as an attorney, minister, and newspaper editor. In 1889, the family moved to Medicine Lodge, Kansas where Carrie ran a hotel. This is where she began her work against the sale of alcohol.

Although prohibition would not become the law of the land until 1919, some states already had such laws on the books, including Kansas. Just as the national ban on the sale of alcohol gave rise to widespread corruption, so did the ban in Kansas. This was particularly egregious to Carrie. She saw alcoholics, the families of alcoholics, and prostitutes associated with saloons, as victims. The real offenders in her mind were those who would take advantage of the weakness for drink. This included not only those who sold alcohol, but those in politics and law enforcement who turned a blind eye and of course received payment for this service.

Carrie began her work by campaigning for the enforcement of the Kansas laws. She petitioned politicians and law enforcement. She organized a branch of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and she would kneel outside saloons singing hymns and praying, often with other women. This proved largely ineffective and I’m sure was very frustrating. On June 5, 1899, Carrie was praying for guidance when she heard God speak to her saying “Go to Kiowa. I’ll stand by you.” Over the next couple of days she gathered large rocks and wrapped them in paper. On June 7, she went to Kiowa and beginning with Dobson’s saloon, began “smashing.” Before long she began using a hatchet and calling these events “hatchetations.”

Carrie had seen visions before so the idea that God would appear to her and give her direction didn’t surprise her and neither did the “demons” she saw on the road barring her way when she set out for Kiowa. She found support for the idea of smashing from the story of Jesus throwing the money lenders out of the temple as well as other biblical stories of destruction in the name of God. She believed that she had a mission from God. At some point she began spelling her name Carry A. Nation and saw her mission as one to “carry a nation.”

Much of Carrie’s autobiography is spent using the Bible to justify her actions. She didn’t avoid the consequences and was jailed as many as 30 times, but she was certainly not remorseful. She would do her time and pay her fine. She raised money through speaking fees and the sale of souvenir hatchets. There were people who thought she was crazy and more than once she believed she was being held in jail while people tried to find evidence to support this claim.

Both the term saint and insane, at least in the colloquial sense, are subjective. Among other religious people of the day, opinions ran the gamut from those who wholeheartedly agreed and even participated with her, to those who were against prohibition. Some must have seen her as a “martyr” for the cause, willing to endure the humiliation of ridicule and imprisonment in order to get the message out, but this was hardly a universal view even among the religious. On the other hand, religious delusions are certainly not unheard of among the mentally ill. And while many people consider anyone who believes God speaks to them as mentally unstable, much of what Carrie describes and the way she uses the Bible can be seen and heard in churches today.

Reading Carrie’s account and justification of her actions it sounds reasonable, if you start from her assumptions. If you don’t believe that God speaks to people or intervenes in the events of the day it is difficult to see her as rational, but then you must include a lot of other people (even today) in the same category. This is certainly a question that is much bigger than any one person and will endure for generations to come if not as long as we inhabit the planet.

As far as Carry A. Nation is concerned, I don’t see her as “insane” or “crazy” in any real clinical sense nor would I call her a saint. In fact, I’m not sure the question is fair framed in such black and white terms. Given her religious experiences as a child and young adult and her experiences with alcoholism in her first marriage, I think in many ways her response is very rational. Although, many people with similar backgrounds would never take it to that extreme. Admittedly, this is based on a very one-sided account, her own. I would love to hear your opinions on this or other information that you may have. Please comment.

Resource: The Use and the Need of Carry A. Nation by Carry A. Nation (in the public domain)