How were women involved in late-nineteenth-century politics?
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Figure false: Woman’s Christian Temperance Union Postcard
Figure false: The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union distributed postcards like this to attack the liquor trade. This card is typical in its portrayal of saloon backers as traitors to the nation. Notice the man trampling on the American flag as he casts his ballot — a sly allusion to the need for woman suffrage. Collection of Joyce M. Tice.
CHRONOLOGY
1879
- – Frances Willard becomes president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union.
1884
- – Frances Willard calls for woman suffrage.
1890
- – National American Woman Suffrage Association is formed.
- – Wyoming is the only state allowing women to vote in national elections.
“DO EVERYTHING,” Frances Willard urged her followers in 1881. The new president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) meant what she said. The WCTU followed a trajectory that was common for women in the late nineteenth century. As women organized to deal with issues that touched their homes and families, they moved into politics, lending new urgency to the cause of woman suffrage. Urban industrialism dislocated women’s lives no less than men’s. Like men, women sought political change and organized to promote issues central to their lives, campaigning for temperance and woman suffrage.