Top of page

Exhibition Join In: Voluntary Assocations in America

Join In: Voluntary Assocations in America

Woman’s Christian Temperance Union

Letter from Frances Willard (1839–1898) to “My Dear Sister and Friend [Clara Barton]” regarding “saloon influences” on college students, February 15, 1898. Clara Barton Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (065.00.00)
Enlarge
Twenty-second Annual Convention of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union of the State of New York. Rochester, New York, 1895. General Collections, Library of Congress (066.00.00)
Enlarge
Twenty-second Annual Convention of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union of the State of New York. Rochester, New York, 1895. General Collections, Library of Congress (066.00.00)
Enlarge
H. (Henry) Pietz, photographer. Presentation Committee W.C.T.U. [Woman’s Christian Temperance Union] of Illinois, ca. 1879. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (067.00.00)
Enlarge

Woman’s Christian Temperance Union

The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), founded in 1874, had become the largest women’s organization in the United States by the late nineteenth century. Frances Willard, president of the WCTU from 1879 until her death in 1898, issued a “Do Everything” appeal to women across the country. Local unions supported the temperance-related causes they believed most benefitted their communities, including women’s suffrage, prison reform, children’s temperance unions, public kindergartens, health and hygiene, homelessness, and unemployment. Even after the success of national prohibition and its later repeal in 1933, the WCTU persisted as an organization throughout the twentieth century and still has active members today.