Axes, Activism, and Abstinence: The WCTU and the Fight for Temperance

INTRO

Hey everyone. Welcome back. 

Standing inside the Art Institute building at the World Columbian Exposition in 1893, Woman’s Christian Temperance Union President Frances Willard prepared for her speech. Thousands of guests had flocked to Chicago to attend the fair celebrating the voyage of Christopher Columbus, the explorer credited with discovering America. While the fair itself was intended to showcase the power of the United States, Willard had another message in mind: the push for temperance and the growing influence of women. 

“When we began the delicate, difficult, and dangerous operation of dissecting out the alcohol nerve from the body politic,” Willard began, “we did not realize the intricacy of the undertaking nor the distances that must be traversed by the scalpel of investigation and research.” For the next several minutes, Frances Willard outlined for the gathered audience the achievements of the largest non-secular organization in the United States and how the push for temperance intersected with a host of other causes plaguing society. Willard closed her speech with a sense of hope; a belief that women were quickly carving out more equal spaces for themselves and each other. Was this true?

This week I am diving into the history of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. What was it? What did it seek to do? And how influential was the organization at achieving its goals? 

Grab your cup of coffee, peeps. Let’s do this. 

To tell the story of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union - of the WCTU as I will call it - is to dive into the history of alcohol use in America. Although the WCTU was established in 1874, it was not the first organization created to publicize the dangers associated with alcohol. In fact, as early as the late 18th century there were calls for colonists to be weary of their alcohol intake with Dr. Benjamin Rush’s An Inquiry Into the Effects of Ardent Spirits Upon the Human Body and Mind, written in 1784. And while Rush thought it was fine to drink things like beer and cider in moderation, he expressed grave concern over the consumption of distilled spirits. Throughout much of the early republic, alcohol was considered a medical remedy for a whole host of ailments. Much like bleeding, booze was seen as a bit of cure-all, intended to treat everything from a headache to tuberculosis.

The earliest calls for temperance weren’t really a call for full abstinence from the drink, but instead a request at moderation. Originating in churches throughout the country, the earliest organization is believed to have been established in New York in 1808. The idea seemed to gain traction and by the 1830s there were over 5,000 temperance societies in the country, including two dozen women’s organizations. In many ways, temperance was the perfect cause for women as it was touted as a quote “religious and moral duty that paired well with other feminine responsibilities,” end quote. Women were considered the arbiters of moral authority and thus the temperance cause was one treated as squarely within the female sphere. And although many temperance societies only called for drinking in moderation, at least a few began pushing the idea of teetotalism, or complete abstinence from alcohol. Of course the push for abstaining from alcohol took a back seat in the mid 19th century as the country nearly tore itself apart during the Civil War. 

However, after the war was over and men resumed a quote unquote normal life, calls for temperance came back. In December 1873, a man by the name of Dr. Dio Lewis gave a sermon in Fredonia, New York decrying the ill effects of alcohol. During his speech he called on the women in the audience to take up the cause for temperance and host their own meeting. The following day, some 50 women showed up ready to work on behalf of eliminating alcohol trafficking. Local men also pledged $1,000 to help them in their efforts and the ladies present landed on a name: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union of Fredonia. Just a few months later in August 1874 at the National Sunday School Assembly in Chautauqua SHA TALK WAH, New York attendee Ms. Mattie McClellan-Brown suggested a committee to send out a call for a national, delegated meeting later in the year in her home state of Ohio. Thus, in November 1874 in the city of Cleveland, Ohio the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union was born. 

Annie Wittenmyer was elected as the organization’s first president, with Mary Johnson serving as recording secretary, Mary Ingham as treasurer, and Frances Willard corresponding secretary. Wittenmeyer would serve as president for five years before Frances Willard took over in 1879 and took a series of steps to scale the organization and grow its membership. Willard was born on September 28, 1839 who graduated from Northwestern Female College in 1859. A woman who never married or had children, Willard dedicated her life to education, temperance, and the fight for women’s rights. Before coming to the WCTU, Willard taught in several schools in states throughout the east and the midwest, including New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. In 1871, Willard became president of Evanston College for Ladies, an institution dedicated to granting degrees to women. The college later merged with Northwestern where Willard became the first Dean of Women and a professor of aesthetics. 

Willard joined the temperance cause in 1874 and believed that the WCTU was an effective tool for women. She believed that the organization could serve as a place of education where women could learn to be something other than the society-prescribed roles of wife and mother. In 1879 Willard became the second president of the WCTU where she helped the organization to become the largest women’s group in the United States. Willard understood the power of persuasion and the WCTU was one of the first groups in the country to employ professional lobbyists in the nation’s capital. By 1892, there were some 150,000 dues-paying members of the WCTU and this growth is in large part thanks to Willard’s decision to institute a new strategy: do everything. 

Adopted at the annual meeting of WCTU members in 1882, the “do everything” policy advocated for local WCTU unions to get involved in any and every cause they believed in that would lead to the betterment of society. Willard, an activist who pushed for women’s right to vote, knew that providing flexibility to members would not only help maintain the existing membership, but could help the organization grow. Members who joined did not have to support suffrage, for example. They could choose to focus on just temperance or work on local public health initiatives. Willard’s idea worked and by 1896, 25 out of 39 groups - referred to as unions - were involved in issues beyond temperance. Local WCTU unions got involved in the fights over international peace, women’s suffrage, and education. The decision to move beyond just temperance left some in the WCTU uncomfortable but Willard believed that women had a unique opportunity through their local union to increase their participation in American politics. Each union was autonomous, allowing individual groups to set their own priorities. Opening WCTU unions to other causes may have also increased its support by other reform-minded women. Susan B. Anthony, who had long been fighting for the vote for women, became a supporter of the WCTU and temperance as a way to protect women from the risks of domestic violence. 

And while they may not have aligned on every issue, the WCTU frequently found common cause with progressives who, much like the WCTU, were seeking ways to improve society including improving the living conditions of immigrants, improving public education, increasing women’s rights, and working on child labor laws. The WCTU umbrella got quite large and led to the organization establishing the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in 1883, and becoming founding members of the National Council for Women in 1888, and the International Council of Women in 1893.

One of the most successful aspects of the do everything campaign was the WCTU’s role in developing public education discouraging alcohol use. In what you may call the 19th century’s version of the DARE program, WCTU educational programs taught students the dangers of alcohol and warned them to stay away from the dangerous liquid. Unlike DARE, however, much of the WCTU’s educational programming around temperance was filled with misinformation, often dramatizing or over-exaggerating the impacts of alcohol including claims that Black Americans were incapable of holding their liquor and that someone could become an alcoholic after a single drink. 

WCTU unions also got involved in assimilation activities, or the quote-unqote Americanization of newly arriving immigrants. WCTU members helped establish English language classes, and facilitated introductions into understanding American culture. Between 1900 and 1920, the WCTU had a missionary center on Ellis Island off the coast of Manhattan where they initiated the Americanization process.  

The influence of the WCTU quickly spread throughout the country and inspired one woman, Carrie Nation, to take matters into her own hands to bring about the end to alcohol in the United States. Born in Kentucky in 1846, Nation joined her local WCTU union while living in Medicine Lodge, Kansas. At the time, Kansas was a dry state - meaning it had outlawed the consumption and transportation of alcohol; however, it was a law that was loosely enforced and a visitor would not be hard pressed to find a saloon or two as they traveled throughout the state. In her version of events, Nation had a dream where she was visited by God telling her to break down a saloon in Kiowa KI O WAH. When she awoke, she mounted her trusted steed and made her way out of town. Believing that she was on a mission from God, Nation apparently let her house guide her and when it didn’t stop at her friend’s house as usual, Nation knew she was doing the lord’s work. She destroyed several saloons in Kiowa and spent the next ten years attacking bars using axes, hammers, and rocks. Even pharmacies were at risk, since medical professionals still routinely prescribed alcohol as a remedy. Nation, who if you haven’t caught on by now is considered one of the more extreme and militant members of the WCTU, described herself as quote “a bulldog running along the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn’t like,” end quote. Standing at a towering 6 feet, Nation took to carrying a hatchet with her and cheekily calling her attacks hatchetations. 

While the “do everything” policy helped generate a wide range of supporters and no doubt increased their overall membership, it also blunted the WCTU’s ability to achieve its original goal of temperance throughout the country. They achieved decent wins locally, successfully convincing local governments to pass temperance laws, but they were unable to gain much traction on a national level to achieve their ultimate goal: a coast to coast ban on alcohol consumption. One could argue that this failure could be tied to a policy that while flexible, was arguably unfocused. Or, it could be that as a group created and run by women, they had a blunted influence over the evolution of national policy. 

Despite falling short, Willard remained a steadfast believer in the power of women organizing to improve society. Speaking at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, Willard declared quote, “Let us not be disconcerted, but stand bravely by that blessed trinity of movement, prohibition, woman’s liberation and labor’s uplift. Everything is not in the Temperance Reform, but the Temperance Reform should be in everything. There is no better motto for the “Do-Everything-Policy,” than this which we are saying by our deeds: “make a chain, for the land is full of bloody crimes and the city of violence,” end quote. Willard remained the president of the WCTU until her death in 1898. The organization still exists today and they list sexual purity, gambling, and the sanctity of human life as some of the causes it supports. 

As far as temperance goes, while the ladies of the WCTU pushed the football down the field, it would take a men’s association, the Anti-Saloon League, to get Congress to pass a nationwide ban on alcohol. Established in 1898 and led ferociously by a man named Wayne Wheeler, the Anti-Saloon League focused solely on the abolition of alcohol from the United States. Under Wheeler’s leadership, the Anti-Saloon League became the most successful single issue lobbying group in United States history. Part of their success was Wheeler’s willingness to ally himself and the group with anyone who supported temperance. This allowed the Anti-Saloon League to benefit from the support of both labor unions and magnates; the NAACP and members of the KKK. And their work eventually proved successful in 1917 when Congress passed the 18th amendment making the country dry… Or so they thought. 

Membership in the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union provided women new opportunities to engage in debate and advocate for societal improvements in the public sphere in a manner considered acceptable by the larger populace. Women were successfully able to engage in the political process and push for changes on the local level while still maintaining the air of propriety. And while they might have fallen short in achieving the national alcohol ban they sought, they certainly had a significant influence over the popularity of the temperance movement, laying the groundwork for the 18th amendment and prohibition.

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Thanks, peeps. I will see you next week.  

OUTRO