Ohio History Journal

edited by

JACK S. BLOCKER JR.

 

Annie Wittenmyer and

the Women's Crusade

 

 

The Women's Temperance Crusade, a spontaneous non-violent

movement against the saloon, involved at least 56,000 women in 912 places

in 26 states, 5 territories and the District of Columbia. It came to a focus in

the creation of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union in

Cleveland, Ohio, 18-20 November 1874. At that convention Annie Turner

Wittenmyer (also spelled "Wittenmeyer") of Philadelphia was elected the

organization's first president.

Historians' picture of Wittenmyer is based largely upon Mary Earhart's

unsympathetic portrait in her biography of Wittenmyer's rival and

successor, Frances E. Willard. Earhart portrays Willard's attempts to

commit the WCTU to woman suffrage, the most radical demand of

nineteenth-century feminism,¹ as the principal basis for conflict between

Willard and Wittenmyer.² But Willard's commitment to woman suffrage

was in fact more equivocal than Earhart admits,³ while the mass appeal of

nineteenth-century feminism stemmed not from its radicalism but from its

diversity.⁴ The background and ideas of Annie Wittenmyer, elected as

leader of their new organization by activist women meeting together for the

first time, can illuminate one important segment of this diverse movement.

Annie Turner was born in 1827 in a small Ohio River town. After

 

 

Jack S. Blocker Jr. is Associate Professor of History at Huron College, London, Ontario,

Canada.

 

 

1. Ellen DuBois, "The Radicalism of the Woman Suffrage Movement: Notes Toward the

Reconstruction of Nineteenth-Century Feminism ," Feminist Studies 3 (Fall, 1975), 63-71.

2. Mary Earhart, Frances Willard: From Prayers to Politics (Chicago, 1944), 151-172.

3. Jack S. Blocker Jr., Retreat from Reform: The Prohibition Movement in the United

States, 1890-1913 (Westport, Conn., 1976), 42, 55-56.

4. Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, "Beauty, the Beast, and the Militant Woman: Sex Roles and

Social Stress in Jacksonian America." American Quarterly 23 (1971), 562-584; Daniel Scott

Smith, "Family Limitation, Sexual Control, and Domestic Feminism in Victorian America,"

in Clio's Consciousness Raised: New Perspectives on the History of Women, eds. Mary

Hartman and Lois W. Banner (New York, 1974), 119-136.

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420                                                      OHIO HISTORY

 

attending an Ohio seminary, she married a wealthy merchant, William

Wittenmyer, in 1847. Her husband died shortly before the outbreak of the

Civil War, leaving her independently wealthy. The War provided her an

opportunity to coin her independence into greater responsibility, service

and a public career. Leaving her only surviving child with relatives, she

quickly became a leader in women's war service. Wittenmyer worked with

the Sanitary Commission until male rivals took over control of women's

previously autonomous work. She then sought and won support from the

United States Christian Commission for her plan to provide special

kitchens for army hospitals, a plan which she successfully carried into

operation. After the War she built a new career as a leader in women's work

within the Methodist Episcopal Church, helping to found the Ladies' and

Pastors' Christian Union in 1868, publishing her ownjournal, the Christian

Woman, and lecturing widely on behalf of both. After serving as NWCTU

president from 1874 to 1879, she continued to work for temperance and for

public support of ex-nurses and widows and mothers of veterans, until her

death in 1900.⁵

The letter reproduced below was directed to Matilda Gilruth

Carpenter-herself an important figure in the early stages of the

Crusade⁶ who in turn made it available to the Fayette County Herald.

Carpenter, the wife of a Presbyterian minister, led the Crusade in

Washington Court House, Ohio. It was there that the Crusade gained its

first success by closing all eleven of the town's saloons and exacting

restrictive pledges from the three liquor-selling druggists after less than two

weeks of mass prayer and song. Through missionary efforts by Carpenter

and others, the Crusade spread to neighboring towns, and newspaper

accounts of the success in Washington Court House stimulated similar

crusades from Maine to California and as far south as Tennessee.⁷ Twenty

years after the Crusade, Carpenter wrote its history in Washington Court

House.⁸

In this letter Wittenmyer provides a more candid view of the Crusade, its

roots and aftermath, than can be found in her History of the Woman's

Temperance Crusade.⁹ Despite her strong connections with the Methodist

Episcopal Church, she shows no regret at the transformation of women's

church societies into women's temperance societies independent

 

5. Frank L. Byrne, "Annie Turner Wittenmyer," in Notable American Women, eds.

Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James, and Paul S. Boyer, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.,

1971), III: 636-638.

6. See the Fayette County Herald (Washington Court House, Ohio), December 31, 1874.

The volume consulted is at the Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

7. I am presently conducting a full study of the Crusade and the founding of the WCTU.

8. Matilda Gilruth Carpenter, The Crusade: Its Origin and Development at Washington

Court House and Its Results (Columbus, Ohio, 1893).

9. Annie Wittenmyer, History of the Woman's Temperance Crusade (Boston, 1882). The

first edition was published in 1878.

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Annie Wittenmyer                                               421

of male clergy. She traces the growing experience and aptitude of women through increased access to education, supportive Civil War work, and the church societies which sprang up during the decade after the War, and places her own development within this pattern. For Wittenmyer, the Crusade was an indication of woman's special role in God's plan for the salvation of humankind. This conception had already supported transformation of domestic passivity into philanthropic activity through the churches, and in the Crusade had shown its potential for justifying militant social and political action. Willard was later to gain fame not by rejecting this concept but by exploiting it further and by extending the range of activities under its sanction. Clearly, a full understanding of the WCTU must take into account Annie Wittenmyer's conception of the autonomous development of women, her belief in woman's unique spiritual power, and the continuities as well as the differences between the Wittenmyer presidency and the Willard regime.     EDS. HERALD: At the request of the Ladies emperance League, EDS. HERALD: At the request of the Ladies Temperance League, I

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422                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

send you a few extracts from an interesting letter, recently received from

the newly elected President of the Woman's National Temperance Union.

Mrs. Whittenmeyer has long been recognized as an efficient Christian

worker, and her visit to this place a few years since will be remembered by

many of our citizens. Her words are of interest to all temperance workers in

the county, and should be an encouragement. W. G. C. [The "W" is

scratched over and replaced by an "M".]

1020 Arch St., Philadelphia, Dec. 15, 1874.

DEAR SISTER: Yours of the 12th inst. has just been received, and I

hasten to answer. * * * I have never felt such interest in any contest as in

yours last winter. Day after day my prayers ascended the Throne in your

behalf; and when the news of your success reached me, all the bells of my

heart rang with joy and gratitude. * * *

The Woman's Temperance Crusade has broken up many of our local

church societies, but has developed a large working force a valuable

force-that will more than compensate for the temporary derangement of

the regular Church work. -My own thought is that God has been

preparing the women of this land for work, for a long time. This

preparation began in the more liberal education of woman, and was greatly

quickened by demands upon them during the late war; and still more

intensified by the various home and foreign missionary societies which

have been conducted by women in nearly all the Christian denominations

in our land. And thus prepared, it pleased the Lord to pour out his Spirit

upon his daughters-his handmaidens, (not upon the world), for this

special work; and, as on the day of Penticost, the people were amazed and

pricked to the heart. I was trained for this temperance work, and all the

work I have done for the last ten years, in the U.S. Christian Commission. I

superintended the work of all their women, near 200 in number, of all

denominations.

Nearly every one has, from that time on, been engaged in Christian and

benevolent work. They are in China, in Japan, and the uttermost parts of

the earth; and, through all these years, we have been bound together by a

three-fold cord. I ask your prayers, because there has come upon me

additional and fearful responsibility. I did not seek or wish the place

assigned me. If my election was a mistake, it is some consolation to feel that

it is not my mistake. There is a great work to do, and we must not rest

satisfied with present achievements, but push on the work till the cause

triumphs everywhere. * * * We desire to organize Juvenile societies all

over the country. We must devise ways to enlist every man, woman and

child, in our cause.

The interest increases here. Last week a State Union was formed in New

Jersey.

Yours,

ANNIE WITTENMEYER.

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