Ban Alcohol Save Marriage: A Survey of the Women's Temperance Movement

Continuing the series I started on women fighting for their rights to be persons under the law and then fighting for the vote, I now turn our focus to the days prior to prohibition and the women’s temperance movement.

The period between 1920 and 1933 was known as Prohibition in the USA. This was a time when all sale of alcohol transportation and handling of it, was illegal, At first when we think of prohibition and women’s temperance we think of the 1930’s, the speak easies, and bootleg liquor. Hollywood has certainly glamorized the era with everyone having a drunken good time.

Yes it was illegal and yes men and women still were able to obtain it in private establishments. But it was not all fun and games. Women started the temperance movement as a protest against alcohol. They were instrumental in getting Prohibition into effect.

Why did the women get involved in such a movement?

Remember during these years and even earlier, women were housewives, and relied on their husband’s income to run the households. There was not much money available to do that, when their husband’s came home in a drunken stupor with empty pockets. Even my own grandmother went through this with her husband. She had three little kids to feed and a husband that drank every cent that he made. She choose to throw him out, but other women choose to fight to get the anti alcohol laws into place.

Women’s Christian Temperance Union

The woman’s temperance movement is older than prohibition. It dates back to 1873 when a bunch of women from Fredonia, New York and in Hillsboro, Ohio gathered at saloons and drugstore or wherever liquor was sold. They formed the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. They prayed and then marched into the establishments asking the owner to stop selling liquor.

Esther McNeil was the first lady accredited with forming this organization. The women were said to be on “The Woman’s Crusade.” The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union were concerned with many issues, such as the woman’s vote, the ban of cigarettes and more. However quashing the use of alcohol was of utmost importance to the group.

On December 24, 1873, 70 women marched two by two from their meeting at the Presbyterian Church in Hillsboro to the local saloons. They were lead by Mrs. Eliza Thompson, daughter of a former governor, who was married to a very respected Judge. The women sang along their route. The song, Give to the Winds Thy Fears, would come to be known as their crusade hymn. The women made their journey every day to the saloons and liquor outlets, praying on sawdust floors or on their knees out in the snow in front of the establishments.

The women were not allowed to enter a saloon. Finally the liquor merchants gave in and stopped selling liquor.

Mother Thompson as she was known became a household name that became a hero to hundreds of women across the country. Sarah K. Bolton a writer of that era summarized the crusade, "In fifty days it (the Crusade) drove the liquor traffic, horse, foot, and dragoons, out of two hundred and fifty towns and villages, increased by one hundred percent the attendance at church and decreased that at the criminal courts in like proportion."

The mandate for the Women’s Christian Temperance Union was to protect the home and their goal was to reform through education and example. They focused on the abstinence from alcohol in the early days and branched out to tobacco and other drugs as time went by. As they grew, the infrastructure of the organization became a series of branches called unions to effectuate legislative change. They became the largest woman’s group in the nation and then the entire world.

This group grew out of a need for social reform and rights for women. Women of that era were not given the right to vote or to control their own lives. Their children as well as the women themselves were property of their husbands. They were not allowed to own property or vote. They had no protection in the case of the divorce. There were no rape laws or laws for children. The age of consent in individual states could be as young as seven years old.

Women did not have access to political town meetings, they were held in saloons and the women were forbidden to go inside. Yet they had serious issues. In the 19^th Century Americans spent about 2 million dollars on education, 9 million on meat, and one billion on alcohol!

In 1879, Francis Willard adopted the slogan “Do Everything” and maintained that their political goals could not be separated from the social issues of the day. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union were to effectuate social reform in everything. Drug and alcohol use was a symptom of a much broader ailment of the society. In 1894 they were endorsing women’s suffrage under “home protection.” By 1896 they had a professional lobbyist in Washington.

By 1945 the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union was a charted member of the United Nations. The organization exists today to education women, and helps them in various home and hearth issues, such as shelters for women and children, and the founding of kindergartens. They helped in the creation of the 8 hour work days and equal pay for women. They assisted in founding the PTA, helped with stricter laws for crimes against women and children, and obtained federal funds for education. They lobbied for and got prison reform, dress codes, and fairer laws for marriage and divorce, legal aid, nutritional education, homes for wayward girls and more.

National Anti Saloon League – 1895

Rev Howard Hyde Russell, the superintendent of Ohio State founded the Ohio Anti Saloon League to work with temperance laws and close down saloons. A similar organization was founded in the Nation’s Capital the very same year. This organization bore the name, The National Anti Saloon League. The name was changed to the Anti-Saloon League of American and Rev Hyde Russell became the superintendent of this national organization.

The league worked to spread the word and had enough clout to get government officials who were “dry” elected. If there were “wet” officials elected, the league would attempt through public awareness to get their own “dry” candidate in office. The league did carry a lot of political weight during these times.

Carrie Nation

Once married to an alcoholic, Carrie Nation could not help but hate alcohol and what it does to ruin lives and marriages. Carrie had spunk and guts and she was not afraid to lead her women crusaders right into the saloons to smash everything in sight. She was arrested at least 30 times between 1900-1910.

The Prohibition Party

The Prohibition Party was established in 1867 as a national political party to aid in the efforts of the temperance movement. It lost its momentum after prohibition was repelled in 1933. It is still a national party today, which advocates for stronger laws for the sale of alcohol, and tobacco. The republican Prohibition Party advocates against pornography, illegal drugs, gambling and other vices.

The Temperance Movement was international

Letitia Youmans established the Temperance Movement in Canada in Ontario in 1896. She was a teacher who became involved with the American movement and returned home and started the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in Canada.

Sources:

http://womenshistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=womenshistory&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wctu.org%2Fcrusades.html

http://womenshistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=womenshistory&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wctu.org%2Fcrusades.html

http://womenshistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=womenshistory&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wpl.lib.oh.us%2FAntiSaloon%2Fhistory%2F

http://womenshistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=womenshistory&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pbs.org%2Fwgbh%2Famex%2F1900%2Fpeopleevents%2Fpande4.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_Party