© 2022 Special Collections (Richard J. Daley Library). All rights reserved.
Christian women conducted a crusade for temperance throughout twenty-three U.S. States in 1873. Anti-alcohol crusaders argued that the use of alcohol had a negative impact on family life and public order by inducing otherwise law abiding and moral men to shun work, quarrel, disrupt the peace, as well as neglect or abuse their families. The Temperance Crusade witnessed some of the first mass meetings and public activities of women in the United States with church-going women gathering to sing Christian hymns, make anti-alcohol statements, and sometimes entering saloons and other once predominately male social environments to encourage the cessation of the use and sale of alcohol. The Women's Christian Temperance Union or WCTU emerged as one of the first truly national organizations of women in the United States in 1874. The WCTU's concerns were related to private conduct such as alcohol consumption, but helped to promote greater participation of women in the public sphere with many of the Temperance movement's early leaders supporting and sometimes joining the women's suffrage movement or other progressive forces. The first president of the WCTU was Annie Wittenmyer, and the second was noted educator and reformer, Frances E. Willard.
The Temperance Collection includes pamphlets, reports, bulletins, flyers, correspondence, notes, Illinois State and U.S. Government documents, clippings, published articles, issues of academic journals, a commemorative 1924 Jubilee Penny, song sheets, historical information, and a Petition drafted by the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Notable items in this collection include original correspondence and published articles by Frances Willard along with government documents, correspondence, and related materials regarding intoxicating liquors and search and seizure laws in the case of Squire T. Harvey & Son.
Access restrictions -- Available without restriction.
Use restrictions -- Available without restriction.
Temperance collection, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago