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Nineteenth century Americans used liquor and spirits heavily for several purposes and reasons. It was indispensable first of all as a beverage. Water was scarce in urban areas and both water and milk were unsafe, known to carry such diseases as tuberculosis. Milk was also substantively more expensive. Distilled spirits, on the other hand, were cheap and thought necessary to supply energy for hard physical labor and to warm the body during cold northern winters. Alcohol was also widely acceptable in the medical community as an anesthetic and analgesic. No other substance was as cheap and as available to ease pain and sooth injured persons.
Production and use of alcoholic beverages rose rapidly during the Civil War, especially due to the large number of wounded. It was also a very stressful time for people, and alcohol was a comfortable respite in this time of strife. In the prosperous post-war period, the use and abuse of alcohol had not lessened. By 1900, one out of every 116 Americans was employed in some aspect of the flourishing liquor industry. 6 Americans spent over $1 billion on alcoholic beverages this year, while spending only $900 million on meat, $150 million to support churches, and less than $200 million on public education. 7 By the end of the nineteenth century, the number of saloons in Chicago equaled the total number of grocery stores, meat markets, and dry goods stores, combined. The saloon was seen as a major social curse of the late nineteenth century, and the society itself a drunken one. 8
Women's Place in the Temperance Cause
Men led the earliest temperance reforms, but from the beginning it was seen as a woman's issue. Women were the protectors of the family and home and alcohol abuse was an issue that affected their daily lives greatly. 9 The American saloon was almost exclusively a male institution in the nineteenth century, and the drunkard's reputation as a wife beater, child abuser, and irresponsible provider was well-established. Even as late as 1900, in thirty-seven states, women possessed no rights to her children, and all her possessions and earnings were her husband's property. 10 The drunkard as head of the household was the true oppressor of his wife and family. Addressing the National American Woman Suffrage Association at its 1875 Chicago meeting, Susan B. Anthony emphasized that "women were the greatest sufferers from drunkenness" though they were rarely the offenders, detailing the condition of the "virtuous woman in legal subjection to her drunken husband." 11
In the dominant nineteenth century sexual ideology, men served the public sphere and women the private. Women were seen as the guardians of morality who presided over the spiritual and physical maintenance of hearth and home. Their duty was to use their moral influence to convert the males of their household from drinking. It was when this suasion was recognized as somewhat ineffective that women invaded the public realm. Temperance became a respectable reason for any middle to upper middle class woman to take a public role. 12
Women's Crusades for Temperance
In December of 1873, Dr. Diocletian Lewis, a professional lecturer, gave a public address on his fall tour through Ohio called "Our Girls," that advocated physical exercise and an active life for women. On Sundays he spoke on "The Duty of Christian Women in the Cause of Temperance." In these lectures he instructed women to ask local dispensers of alcoholic beverages to sign pledges that they would cease to sell. Upon refusal, the women should begin prayer and song services in these establishments. He urged women to be the sole participants in these acts, in order to aggrandize the emotional force of the movement. Women took to the snowy streets, and within three months of their first march, women had driven the liquor business out of 250 towns. By the time the marches ended, over 912 communities in 31 states and territories had experienced the crusades. It was and is still the largest mass movement of women to date. 13
Their appeal to local liquor sellers read as follows:
"Knowing, as we do, the fearful effects of intoxicating drinks, we, the women of [state: Washington, Ohio...], after earnest prayer and deliberation, have decided to appeal to you to desist from this ruinous traffic, that our husbands, brothers, and especially our sons, be no longer exposed to this terrible temptation, and that we may no longer see them led into those paths which go down to sin and bring both soul and body to destruction. We appeal to the better instincts of your hearts, in the name of desolated homes, blasted hopes, ruined lives, widowed hearts; for the honor of our community, for our prosperity, for our happiness, for our good name as a town; in the name of God, who will judge you as well as ourselves, for the sake of your own souls, which are to be saved or lost, we beg, we implore you, to cleanse yourselves from this heinous sin and place yourselves in the ranks of those who are striving to elevate and ennoble themselves and their fellow-men; and to this we ask you to pledge yourselves." 14
Most of the crusades were non-violent, with women kneeling in the streets and singing hymns, but occasionally it became militant due to the incredibly violent opposition they experienced. Not only did many of the saloonkeepers take the protesters to court, but in some instances dogs were set on the women or mobs of brewers rushed at them with bats. This produced a range of responses from sympathy to fury. Whatever the case, the crusades spread across the country, revolutionizing women's place in the public domain. Frances Willard, the second national president of the WCTU, wrote later in her memoirs, that the crusade "was like the fires we used to kindle on the western prairies, a match and a wisp of grass were all that was needed, and behold the spectacle of a prairie on fire sweeping across the landscape, swift as a thousand untrained steeds and no more to be captured than a hurricane." 15
A National Organization
The crusades' primary participants were middle class Evangelical Protestant women. Many felt a national organization should be established of these crusaders. In August of 1874, Martha McClellan Brown, a long-standing temperance worker from Ohio, Jennie Willing, corresponding secretary of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist church and a professor of English language and literature at Illinois Wesleyan University, and Emily Huntington Miller used their extensive church network contacts to circulate a letter to all the women's temperance organizations that had cropped up across the country urging elect a delegatefrom each congressional district to send to a national organizing convention. 16
In the Second Presbyterian Church on Wednesday, November 18, 1874, 300 women assembled to establish the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Sixteen states were represented, with 135 women registered as delegates. At this convention, the organization was put in place with elected permanent officers and a constitution. Mrs. Annie Wittenmyer was elected president, with Miss Frances E. Willard as corresponding secretary, Mrs. Mary Johnson as recording secretary, and Mrs. Mary Ingham as treasurer. 17 It was also at this meeting that the rule of only women as voting delegates and office holders was firmly incorporated.
Expansion
The WCTU grew in membership and power and went through many changes in schematization. By the 1890, alcoholism began to be seen more as a disease than a sin, though it was still considered to be moral aberration. Also, poverty was recognized as a cause rather than result of drink. But most importantly, with the presidency of Frances Willard, the WCTU's scope increased its attention to nontemperance issues. Willard's personal motto was to "do everything," 18 and she believed the WCTU to be the first organization that "could, with proper leadership, be arrayed likewise against every other evil which threatens the home and strikes at our civilization." She saw the WCTU also as an effective educational agency for women. 19 Many of these women had become public orators and spoke out for prison reform and also began working more with children. Along with creating a division within the organization to handle juvenile temperance, a department was also made to work finding foster or permanent homes for homeless children and to deal with child abuse. Kindergarten as part of the public school system became one of their major causes. They also formed a strong alliance with certain organized labor organizations. 20
In 1894, it began to actively endorse women's suffrage and later took on the fight for women's civil rights in the workplace and legal arena. These women of the Protestant church "sought to overcome the corruption of the world in a dynamic manner, not only by converting men to belief in Christ but also by Christianizing the social order through the power and force of law." 21 They achieved their greatest success with the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment for Prohibition, but since then and since its repeal, membership has steadily declined.
Present-Day Activism
The WCTU exists today somewhat as a shell of its own powerfully active history. Membership is still acquired by signing a pledge of abstinence and by paying dues. There are numerous state and local chapters. The national web site http://www.wctu.org provides information on the dangers of alcohol,tobacco, other drugs, and homosexuality. They have essay contests for students and public lectures regarding such current issues as fetal alcohol syndrome. They also conduct seminars for those interested in alcohol, tobacco, and drug education. 22 A current project is to reward restaurants that do not serve alcohol and/or are smoke-free. 23
"The WCTU has proposed, supported, and helped establish: protection of women and children at home and work, women's right to vote, shelters for abused women and children, the eight-hour work day, equal pay for equal work, founding of kindergartens, assistance in founding of the PTA, federal aid for education, stiffer penalties for sexual crimes against girls and women, uniform marriage and divorce laws, dress reform, travelers' aid, prison reform and police matrons, women police officers, homes and education for wayward girls, promotion of nutrition, pure food and drug act, legal aid, labor's right to organize, passive demonstrations and world peace. It has opposed and worked against:the drug traffic; the use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs; white slavery; child labor; and army brothels." 24
The organization was built around temperance reform, and behind that lay their slogan, "For God and Home and Every Land" (originally "For God and Home and Native Land"). The original members felt that "the fight for a clear brain is a fight for Christianity." 26 Their priority is the protection of women, children, and the home, by the abstinence of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. The use of alcohol, most significantly, poses "the direst of threats to American society." 27
A white ribbon bow symbolizes the purity as obtained by pledging complete abstinence. WCTU's 'swatchwords' are "Agitate - Educate - Legislate." They believe that non-violent protest and education is the way to achieve their goal of ridding the family and home of drugs and alcohol. 28
Though temperance is still their main crusade, the WCTU has expanded its outlook and believes mainly in the importance of traditional Christian family values and supports passive demonstrations and the possibility of world peace.
The history of WCTU and its mission as an organization.
http://www.wctu.org/earlyhistory.htm
1
. (Founders and Year Founded) Bordin,
Woman and Temperance
p36
2
. Woman's Christian Temperance Union Early History
http://www.wctu.org/earlyhistory.htm
3
. Bordin,
Woman and Temperance
p37
4
. Woman's Christian Temperance Union Membership
http://www.wctu.org/member.htm
5
. Email from Sarah Ward of the WCTU dated 3.23.00 "To answer your questions - we have
about 8,000 members in the US."
Sarah Ward
sarah@wctu.org
6
. Bordin,
Woman and Temperance
p5-6
7
. Woman's Christian Temperance Union Early History
http://www.wctu.org/earlyhistory.htm
8
. Clark,
Deliver us from Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition
ch1
9
. Blocker,
American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform
xii
10
. Filene,
Him/Herself: Sex Roles in Modern America
p33
11
. Kraditor,
Up from the Pedestal: Selected Writings in the History of American Feminism
p159-161
12
. Bordin,
Woman and Temperance
p7-9
13
. same
14
. Blocker,
American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform
p63
15
. Gordon,
Frances E. Willard
p85
16
. Willard,
Woman and Temperance
p121-126
17
. Woman's Christian Temperance Union Early History
http://www.wctu.org/earlyhistory.htm
18
. Woman's Christian Temperance Union - Frances Willard
http://www.wctu.org/frances.htm
19
. Gordon,
Frances Willard
p100-101
20
. Bordin,
Woman and Temperance
p99-105
21
. Timberlake,
Prohibition and the Progressive Movement
p7
22
. Woman's Christian Temperance Union
http://www.wctu.org
23
. Email from Sarah Ward of the WCTU dated 3.23.00 "To answer your questions - Our
current national project is to present a certificate to restaurants that do not serve
alcohol, or are smoke-free, or both."
Sarah Ward
sarah@wctu.org
24
. Woman's Christian Temperance Union Early History
http://www.wctu.org/earlyhistory.htm
25
. Bordin,
Woman and Temperance
p36
26
.Gordon,
Women Torch-Bearers
p9
27
. Rose,
American Women and the Repeal of Prohibition
p21
28
. Woman's Christian Temperance Union Early History
http://www.wctu.org/earlyhistory.htm
Created by
Sarah K Roberts
For Soc 452: Sociology of Religious Behavior
University of Virginia
Spring Term, 2000
Last modified: 05/23/00