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.
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 |
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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 |
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.