Chicagoist and the Volstead Act: Frances Willard and The Woman's Christian Temperance Union

By Chuck Sudo in Miscellaneous on Dec 5, 2008 8:55PM

You didn't think we'd focus totally on the speakeasies this week, did you?

There are two sides to every argument and, for those who were in favor of a dry nation, few were as persistent as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Sun-Times reporter Kara Spak has a wonderful profile of the group in today's Bright One. The roots of the WCTU were forged in the 1873 Women's Crusades in New York and Ohio. Women marched two-by-two, in a straight line, arranged by height, to local saloons and drug stores that sold liquor. There they knelt on sticky,sawdust strewn floors — or in the snow, if they weren't allowed entry — sang hymns and prayed for the salvation of proprietors and customers until those folks caved in.

Flush with the success of their protest, the WCTU was formed in Cleveland the following November to use non-violent protest and education of the dangers of alcohol and tobacco, and by extension laid the foundation for the suffrage movement. Back then most local political meetings were held in saloons where women were excluded. With the 1879 election of Frances Willard (pictured, right) as WCTU President, the organization adopted her personal motto of "do everything" to tie all reforms social and political together, theorizing that alcohol, tobacco and drug use were symptomatic of society's larger ailments.

Willard's family moved to Evanston in 1858, where she enrolled at North Western Female College. She became a schoolteacher upon graduation, working in various towns and states until she returned to Evanston in 1871 to become President of Evanston College for Ladies. That college was rolled into Northwestern University two years later and Willard became Dean of Women of the Women's College. She resigned a year later amid disagreements with her former fiancée, NU President Charles Henry Fowler, over her running of the College, and redirected her energies toward the temperance movement. Willard passed away in 1898 at the age of 58. She bequeathed the Willard family home at 1730 Chicago Ave. in Evanston to house the national headquarters of the WCTU, where it remains to this day. The Willard house is also a museum, with tours given on the 1st and 3rd Sundays of every month from 1-3 p.m.

As you're out this evening (maybe at the Drake Hotel's Coq d'or Room, where they're offering forty-cent shots of Beam), raise a toast to Ms. Willard for fighting the fight.