Women's Christian Temperance Union as an early Feminist movement

[CreekDog]

A while back I was studying some United States religious history to figure out why wine isn't served in communion in most Protestant churches and came across an interesting name and interesting early Feminist movement, called the Women's Christian Temperance Union and its leader, Frances Willard. Yes, they were famous for trying to get wine out of communion and at about the same time, Dr. Welch of Vineland, New Jersey figured out how to stop grape juice from fermenting and becoming wine.

The point that fascinates me is that the same movement and people that vastly advanced civil rights in this country, also likely helped create Prohibition of alcohol. Reality is always complex and not the clean story arc that we like to think about. Yet despite this, Frances Willard and the movement she led, were very progressive. Then, it seems that women and churches were the source of liberal change and expansion of civil rights, half of that picture being very hard to conceive of in 2012.

"Although she was not a minister, Frances Willard had several lasting impacts upon American Christianity. First, with her leadership in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Willard and her ladies were against using wine for communion. Beginning in 1876, grape juice began to be used in place of wine in Methodist, Baptist, and Congregational denominations. The Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Catholics continue to use wine.[xlviii] Secondly, because of her outreach, women of all denominations and faiths worked together in a common cause, allowing for more religious tolerance and cooperation in America.

http://are.as.wvu.edu/willard.html

Despite my own judgement of that particular thing that brought Willard to my notice, this movement was very important in civil rights. Willard is arguably a great influence on liberalism as we know it today, and yet like all movements and leaders within them, they are always 'of their time' in fascinating ways.

"Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard (September 28, 1839 – February 17, 1898) was an American educator, temperance reformer, and women's suffragist. Her influence was instrumental in the passage of the Eighteenth (Prohibition) and Nineteenth (Women Suffrage) Amendments to the United States Constitution. Willard became the national president of the World Woman's Christian Temperance Union, or World WCTU, in 1879, and remained president for 19 years. She developed the slogan "Do everything" for the women of the WCTU to incite lobbying, petitioning, preaching, publication, and education. Her vision progressed to include federal aid to education, free school lunches, unions for workers, the eight-hour work day, work relief for the poor, municipal sanitation and boards of health, national transportation, strong anti-rape laws, and protections against child abuse.[1]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Willard_(suffragist)

I'm also thinking about Feminist history and the history of all civil rights movements and how they teach us about important people, who should always be looked at objectively.

The lesson I think is to appreciate the leaders that came before us for what contributions they gave, but to always decide for ourselves the things we value now and not accept unequivocally that great leaders were right about all things, including what we should think.

So when you define "Feminism", the definition should respect history and be accurate, but it should belong to the people that choose to define it and advance it now.

[KT2000]

1. I did not realize this until

I saw the show where Helen Hunt traced her roots.
I too had a grandmother who was in the WCTU and always thought it was an intolerant group. Boy was I wrong - and gladly so.

[Warpy]

2. My grandmother was a one time president of the NY WCTU

and she had ample reason to be so. She divorced my grandfather just before the Depression hit, mostly for the horrible things his alcoholism did to her and my mother.

In the meantime, she lived on Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Tonic, something that had a high percentage of alcohol in it. Oh well.

What people fail to remember about the temperance movement is that whether or not a man drank was a matter of life and death for women and children, the women being powerless to hold well paying jobs that would feed a family if Himself was drunk in a gutter.

So yes, it was an early feminist movement. Unfortunately, by focusing on Demon Rum, they neglected the true culprit, Demon Misogyinistic Law, something that's threatening to make a comeback thanks to the Koch boys.

[KT2000]

3. what I learned on the show

was that, at least in the Maine group, they established day care and other services for women. They also fought for the vote. If you ever get a chance to see the show with Helen Hunt - it is really eye opening. It is that show about tracing one's roots.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. The WCTU was more of a movement against domestic violence than banning alcohol.

Alcohol caused many of their fathers, husbands, brothers to attack them in drunken rages.

[CreekDog]

5. that makes sense, though it clearly went beyond that

and advocated all sorts of social and societal changes to deal with poverty, equality, education, etc.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. There was also an anti-immigrant (Catholic/Irish) aspect to prohibition

Similar to the way racism has driven much of the travesty we now know as the drug war.

[JustAnotherGen]

7. Civil Rights for who? All women? Or just the gilded lillies?

Wells' anti-lynching campaign brought the two to England concurrently. As Wells described the horrors of American lynchings, British liberals were incredulous that White women such as Willard–who had been heralded in the English press as the "Uncrowned Queen of American Democracy"–would turn a blind eye to such violence. Wells correctly accused Willard of being silent on the issue of lynchings, and of making racial comments which would add fuel to the fire of mob violence.[22] To support her assertion, Wells referred to an interview Willard had conducted during a tour of the South in which Willard had blamed Blacks for the defeat of temperance legislation there and had cast aspersions on the race. "The colored race multiplies like the locusts of Egypt," she had said, and "the grog shop is its center of power... The safety of women, of childhood, of the home is menaced in a thousand localities."[22]

In response, Willard and her powerful hostess and counterpart, Lady Somerset, attempted to use their influence to keep Wells' comments out of the press. Wells responded by revealing that despite Willard's abolitionist forbears and Black friends, no Black women were admitted to the WCTU's southern branches.[citation needed]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_B._Wells

Keep in mind - one of the ways Willard brought Southern women into the fold was by making sure the black members marched at the back of the parade. And she had nothing to say about white men raping black women - as she often played to the 'Jezebel' stereotype of black women that we still see today . . . i.e. - They (black women) by birth are sexual miscreants.

[CreekDog]

8. Hey I said to judge them objectively --I don't think she's a hero, in fact I don't much like her

but she was an important person in the history of feminism, an obviously flawed one, who had some abhorrent beliefs.

my thread wasn't meant to venerate her, but to take a critical look at her.

[JustAnotherGen]

9. Very true

Definitely a flawed human being. Especially when held up against Anthony (Susan B.) or Abigail Adams.