The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program that "linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far-reaching reform strategies based on applied Christianity." It plays an influential role in the temperance movement. Originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement, the organization supported the 18th Amendment and was also influential in social reform issues that came to prominence in the progressive era.
Sarah Knowles Bolton was an American writer. She was born in Farmington, Connecticut. In 1866, she married Charles E. Bolton, a merchant and philanthropist. She wrote extensively for the press, was one of the first corresponding secretaries of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union (N.W.C.T.U.), and was associate editor of the Boston Congregationalist (1878–81). Bolton traveled for two years in Europe, studying profit-sharing, female higher education, and other social questions. Her writings encouraged readers to improve the world about them through faith and hard work.
Zerelda Gray Sanders Wallace was the First Lady of Indiana from 1837 to 1840, and a temperance activist, women's suffrage leader, and inspirational speaker in the 1870s and 1880s. She was a charter member of Central Christian Church, the first Christian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her husband was David Wallace, the sixth governor of Indiana; Lew Wallace, one of her stepsons, became an American Civil War general and author.
Mary Greenleaf Leavitt was an educator and successful orator who became the first round-the-world missionary for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Setting out on virtually non-stop worldwide tours over a decade, she "went to all continents save Antarctica," where she crusaded against alcohol and its evils including domestic violence; and advocated for women's suffrage and other equal rights such as higher education for women. In 1891 she became the honorary life president of the World's WCTU.
Sarah "Annie" Turner Wittenmyer was an American social reformer, relief worker, and writer. She served as the first President of the Women's Christian Temperance Union from 1874 to 1879. The Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home was renamed the Annie Wittenmyer Home in 1949 in her honor.
The Woman's Relief Corps (WRC) is a charitable organization in the United States, originally founded as the official women's auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) in 1883. The organization was designed to assist the GAR and provide post-war relief to Union veterans. The GAR had been created as a "fraternal" organization and refused to allow women to join up until the creation of this auxiliary. It is largely dedicated to historical preservation of research and official documentation related to the WRC and GAR.
The Woman's Temperance Publishing Association (WTPA) was a non-commercial publisher of temperance literature. Established in 1879 in Indianapolis, Indiana during the national convention of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), it was a concept of Matilda Carse, an Irish-born American businesswoman, social reformer and leader of the temperance movement.
Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary is a three-volume biographical dictionary published in 1971. Its origins lay in 1957 when Radcliffe College librarians, archivists, and professors began researching the need for a version of the Dictionary of American Biography dedicated solely to women.
Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church was one of three Methodist organizations in the United States focused on women's foreign missionary services; the two others were the WFMS of the Free Methodist Church of North America and the WFMS of the Methodist Protestant Church.
Jennie Fowler Willing was a Canadian-born American educator, author, preacher, social reformer, and suffragist. She married a lawyer and Methodist pastor at age 19. In 1873, she and her husband became professors at Illinois Wesleyan University. In addition to teaching, she was a leader in the temperance movement. Willing came to notice when she joined the Illinois Woman's State Temperance Union, serving as its leader for some years. She and Emily Huntington Miller were involved with creating and presiding over the First Woman's National Temperance Convention of 1874 in Cleveland where the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union was formed. She served as the editor of the national organization's journal for a period. In 1895, she created the New York Evangelistic Training School. Willing wrote several books including From Fifteen to Twenty-five: A Book for Young Men and serials for newspapers.
Caroline Brown Buell was an American activist who lectured and wrote on behalf of temperance and suffrage. She served as the assistant recording secretary (1878–80), corresponding secretary (1880–93), and a member of the Our Union publication committee (1876–83) of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU); as well as the president (1904) and corresponding secretary (1875–86) of the Connecticut WCTU. She also originated the plan of the Loyal Temperance Legion, the children's society of the WCTU. Buell wrote extensively for temperance publications, and other papers and magazines. She made her home in East Hampton, Connecticut.
Mary Bigelow Ingham was an American author, educator, and religious worker. Dedicated to teaching, missionary work, and temperance reform, she served as professor of French and belles-lettres in the Ohio Wesleyan College; presided over and addressed the first public meeting ever held in Cleveland conducted exclusively by religious women; co-founded the Western Reserve School of Design ; and was a charter member of the order of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Mary Lathrap, pen name: Lena; known as "The Daniel Webster of Prohibition", was a 19th-century American author, preacher, suffragist, and temperance reformer. For 20 years, she was identified with the progressive women of Michigan who had temperance, purity, and prohibition as their watchwords, and the white ribbon as their badge. A licensed preacher for the Methodist Episcopal Church (1871), she served as president of Michigan's Woman's Christian Temperance Union (1882), co-founded the state's suffrage organization (1870), and worked on the amendment campaign (1874). She died in 1895, aged 56.
The Union Signal is a defunct American newspaper. It was the organ of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union (N.W.C.T.U.), at one time, the largest women's organization in the United States. Established in 1874 aa The Woman's Temperance Union, it was renamed in 1877 as Our Union. When Our Union merged with another temperance paper, The Signal, in 1883, the organ's name was changed to The Union Signal. Published in Chicago, Illinois, it focused on the woman's temperance movement in the U.S. Initially, a weekly 16-page illustrated newspaper, it shifted location and publishing schedule before it ceased publication in 2016. The last edition of the N.W.C.T.U.'s quarterly journal, titled The Union Signal, was published in 2015, the main focus of which was current research and information on drugs.
Temperance Temple served as the headquarters of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). It was located in Chicago, Illinois at the southwest corner of LaSalle Street and Monroe Street, in the center of city's financial district. Work was begun in July, 1890, and the building was ready for occupancy in May 1892. The lot was valued at US$1,000,000; the rentals from the building were expected to bring in an annual income of over US$200,000. The capital stock was US$600,000, one-half of which was owned by the Temple Building Association of Chicago (TBAC), and it was expected all would be secured to that association. The TBAC, a stock company with Marshall Field president of the board of trustees, owned The Temple, the third of the affiliated interests of the National WCTU. The office building was erected at a cost of US$1,200,000 on ground leased to the TBAC by Field. Temperance Temple was demolished in 1926.
Jane Agnes Stewart was an American author, editor, and contributor to periodicals. She was a special writer for many journals on subjects related to woman's, religious, educational, sociological, and reform movements. Stewart was a suffragist and temperance activist. She traveled to London, Edinburgh, and Paris as a delegate of world's reform and religious conventions.
Non-Partisan National Women's Christian Temperance Union was an American temperance association organized at Cleveland, Ohio, January 22, 1890, as a protest against the attitude of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.) toward political parties.
The Second Annual Meeting of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union (N.W.C.T.U.) was held in St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal church, Cincinnati, Ohio, November 17-19, 1875.
The Third Annual Meeting of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union (N.W.C.T.U.) was held in Newark, New Jersey, October 25-28, 1876. Twenty-two State unions were represented at this meeting, and local unions were reported as having been formed for the first time in Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arkansas, preparatory to State organizations. No officer of the N.W.C.T.U. received a dollar for services or traveling expenses during the year. Robert's Rules of Order was adopted as the parliamentary authority for the N.W.C.T.U.
