Frances Willard

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard

Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard (born September 28, 1839 in Churchville , New York , † February 17, 1898 in New York City ) was an American teacher, suffragette and social reformer . In 1874 she was one of the founders of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and was its president from 1879 until her death.

Life

Frances Willard was the daughter of Churchville businessman Josiah Flint Willard and his wife, Mary Thompson Hill Willard, a professional teacher. Her brother Oliver was 5 years older than her. When Frances was two years old, the family moved to Oberlin , Ohio . Her sister Mary was born in 1842, the year of the move. In 1848 the family moved to Janesville , Wisconsin , where the father ran a farm. Frances was initially tutored by her mother. Later, when the small village school her father had built was finished in 1853, she attended it. In 1857 she moved to the Female College in Milwaukee .

In 1858, when she was 18 years old, the family moved again, this time to Evanston , Illinois . A year later, in 1859, she graduated from North Western Female College and then began training as a teacher. She taught in Evanston for a few years and went on a world tour with her friend Kate Jackson for 3 years from 1868 to 1870. Back in the United States , she moved back to Evanston, where she was appointed principal of Evanston College for Ladies in 1871 . When the college was integrated into Northwestern University in 1873 , she became dean for women at Women's College and became professor of English and the arts . After disputes with the President of the University Charles Henry Fowler , with whom she in 1861 a. a. was once engaged, she quit her job in 1874.

Act

This was their chance and the beginning of their engagement in the abstinence movement , their fight for women's rights and their striving for a more social and just society.

In the summer of 1874 she traveled to the east coast and took part in numerous campaigns of the relatively young abstinence movement. When she returned to Evanston, she was approached to lead the Chicago group of the movement. Already in November 1874 she took part in the founding congress of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in Cleveland , Ohio and was immediately elected Corresponding Secretary. She transformed her position with her commitment to the lifeline of the organization.

As a talented speaker, she appeared in election campaigns, with her talent for writing she created brochures and leaflets, with her ability to inspire people, she organized campaigns. She had established so many contacts with women very quickly like no other member of the organization. When she was finally elected President of the WCTU in 1879, the WCTU had grown to become the largest women's organization in the country with 27,000 members.

Under Frances Willard's leadership, the WCTU fought for women's suffrage and the eight-hour day , led the abstinence movement, supported the kindergarten movement , advocated prison reform, called for model institutions for handicapped children and promoted federal aid for general education and vocational training (to name but a few To name points). She represented Christian socialism , joined the Knights of Labor in the fight for the eight-hour day and in 1882 organized the campaign against the sale of alcohol in the Prohibition Party .

Frances Willard has become a well-known publicly respected and recognized politician over the years. By 1890 she was the most famous woman in the States, comparable to Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1930s.

The WCTU, which Frances Willard led until her death in 1898, became under her direction with over 150,000 members, the largest political and most effective women's organization of its time.

Frances Willard died in a New York hotel on February 17, 1898, in preparation for a trip to England, of complications from anemia and flu .

Posthumously she was honored and in 1905 for her services their sculpture - in - a work by Helen Farnsworth Mears Washington in the National Statuary Hall added. Her bust found its place in the Hall of Fame for Great Americans in New York in 1910 .

literature

  • Woman and Temperance, or, The work and workers of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. , Park Pub., Hartford, 1883, reprinted by Arno Press, New York, 1972. ISBN 0-405-04093-8
  • Nineteen Beautiful Years, or, Sketches of a Girl's Life , Woman's Temperance Publication Association, Chicago, 1886.
  • How to win a Book for Girls , Funk & Wagnalls Company, New York, 1888.
  • Glimpses of Fifty Years: The Autobiography of an American Woman , HJ Smith & Co., Chicago, 1889.
  • A Woman of the Century: 1470 Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life , Charles Wells Moulton, Buffalo, 1893, new edition: Gordon Press, New York, 1975 ISBN 0-87968-183-7
  • A Great Mother , Woman's Temperance Publication Association, Chicago, 1894.
  • Do everything: a handbook for the world's white ribboners , Woman's Temperance Publication Association, Chicago, 1895.
  • A Wheel Within a Wheel , Fleming H. Revell Co., New York, 1895, new edition: Standard Publications Inc., US, 2007. ISBN 1-59462-808-4
  • How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle: Reflections of an Influential 19th Century Woman , Fair Oaks Publishing, US, 1991. ISBN 0-933271-05-0
  • Great American Women in the 19th Century: A Biographical Encyclopedia , Humanity Books, New York, 2005. ISBN 1-59102-211-8 (Co-author: Mary A. Livermore)

Web links

Commons : Frances Willard  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Places, museum, memorial halls

  • Homepage . Frances Willard - House Museum & Archives,accessed January 11, 2016(Museum inEvanston, Illinois).
  • Frances E. Willard . Architect of the Capitol,accessed January 11, 2016(Statue in theNational Statuary Hall Collection).
  • 69. Frances Elizabeth Willard . Hall of Fame for Great Americans,accessed January 11, 2016(New York).
personal data
SURNAME Willard, Frances
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Willard, Frances Elizabeth Caroline (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American teacher, suffragette, social reformer, co-founder of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union
DATE OF BIRTH September 28, 1839
PLACE OF BIRTH Churchville , New York
DATE OF DEATH February 17, 1898
Place of death new York