Read Part One HERE
In this post I will continue to focus on a woman named Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard. She lived from 1839 - 1898. In 1874, Frances participated in the founding convention of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) where she was elected the first Corresponding Secretary. In 1876, she became head of the WCTU Publications Department, focusing on publishing and building a national audience for the WCTU's weekly newspaprt, The Union Signal.
In 1879, she became president of the National WCTU, a position she held until her death. Her tireless efforts for the temperance cause included a 50-day speaking tour in 1874, an average of 30,000 miles of travel a year, and an average of 400 lectures a year for a 10-year period, mostly with the assistance of her personal secretary Anna Adams Gordon.
As president of the WCTU, Frances also argued for female suffrage, based on "Home Protection," which she described as "the movement... the object of which is to secure for all women above the age of twenty-one that ballot as one means for the protection of their homes from the devastation caused by the legalized traffic in strong drink."
Read Part One Hundred And Seventy HERE
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