Frances Willard
Frances Willard | |
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World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union; first president, National Council of Women of the United States | |
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Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard (September 28, 1839 – February 17, 1898) was an
Early life and education
Willard was born in 1839 to
In 1858, the Willard family moved to
Teaching career
After graduating from North Western Female College, Willard held various teaching positions throughout the country. She worked at the Pittsburgh Female College, and, as preceptress at the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary in New York (later Syracuse University).[4] She was appointed president of the newly founded Evanston College for Ladies in 1871. When the Evanston College for Ladies became the Woman's College of Northwestern University in 1873, Willard was named the first Dean of Women at the university. However, that position was to be short-lived with her resignation in 1874 after confrontations with the University President, Charles Henry Fowler, over her governance of the Woman's College.[5] Willard had previously been engaged to Fowler and had broken off the engagement.[1]
Activist (WCTU and suffrage)
After her resignation, Willard focused her energies on a new career: the women's
In 1879, she sought and successfully obtained presidency of the National WCTU. Once elected, she held the post until her death.[11] Her tireless efforts for the temperance cause included a 50-day speaking tour in 1874, an average of 30,000 miles of travel a year, and an average of 400 lectures a year for a 10-year period, mostly with the assistance of her personal secretary, Anna Adams Gordon.
Meanwhile, Willard sought to expand WCTU membership in the South, and met
As president of the
Willard's suffrage argument also hinged on her feminist interpretation of Scripture. She claimed that natural and divine laws called for equality in the American household, with the mother and father sharing leadership. She expanded this notion of the home, arguing that men and women should lead side by side in matters of education, church, and government, just as "God sets male and female side by side throughout his realm of law."[14]
Willard's work took to an international scale in 1883 with the circulation of the
In 1892 she took part in the St. Louis convention during the formation of the People's (or Populist) Party.[18] The convention was brought a set of principles that was drafted in Chicago, Illinois, by her and twenty-eight of the United States' leading reformers, whom had assembled at her invitation.[18] However, the new party refused to endorse women's suffrage or temperance because it wanted to focus on economic issues.[18]
After 1893, Willard was influenced by the British Fabian Society and became a committed Christian socialist.[19]
Death
In 1898, Willard died quietly in her sleep[20] at the Empire Hotel in New York City after contracting influenza while she was preparing to set sail for England and France. She is buried at Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago, Illinois.[21]
Frances Willard and her sister Mary Thompson Hill Willard are interred at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago. She bequeathed her Evanston home to the WCTU. The Frances Willard House was opened as a museum in 1900 when it also became the headquarters for the WCTU. In 1965 it was elevated to the status of National Historic Landmark.
Legacy
The famous painting, American Woman and her Political Peers,[22] commissioned by Henrietta Briggs-Wall for the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition, features Frances Willard at the center, surrounded by a convict, American Indian, lunatic, and an idiot. The image succinctly portrayed one argument for female enfranchisement: without the right to vote, the educated, respectable woman was equated with the other outcasts of society to whom the franchise was denied.[23]
After her death, Willard was the first woman included among America's greatest leaders in
Willard is commemorated on a US postage stamp released on March 28, 1940, as part of the Famous Americans series.[25][26]
The
There's a small memorial at Richardson Beach in Kingston, Ontario, Canada put there by the Kingston Woman's Christian Temperance Union on Sept. 28, 1939.
Willard appears as one of two main female protagonists in the young adult novel Bicycle Madness by Jane Kurtz.
In 2000, Willard was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.[27]
Namesakes
Willard Hall in Temperance Temple, Chicago, was named in her honor.[28]
In 1911, the
Frances E. Willard elementary school. Evanston, Illinois.
Frances E. Willard Elementary School, Pasadena, California.
Frances E. Willard Elementary School. Became Willard Junior High School, 1960. Tidewater Drive, Norfolk, Virginia.
The Frances Willard House Museum and Archives is located in Evanston, Illinois.[31]
A dormitory at Northwestern University,
The Frances E. Willard School in Philadelphia was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.[33]
The Frances Willard Schoolhouse in Janesville, Wisconsin was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.[34]
Frances Willard Elementary School is a public school in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Frances Willard Avenue in Chico, California is named in her honor. She was a guest of John and Annie Bidwell, the town founders and fellow leaders in the prohibitionist movement. The avenue is adjacent to the Bidwell Mansion.
The Frances E. Willard Temperance Hospital operated under that name from 1929 to 1936 in Chicago. It is now Loretto Hospital in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago.[37]
FEW Spirits, a distillery located in Evanston, Illinois, uses Willard's initials as its name.[38][39]
Relationships
The loves of women for each other grow more numerous each day, and I have pondered much why these things were. That so little should be said about them surprises me, for they are everywhere.... In these days when any capable and careful woman can honorably earn her own support, there is no village that has not its examples of 'two hearts in counsel,' both of which are feminine.
– Frances Willard, The Autobiography of an American Woman: Glimpses of Fifty Years, 1889
Contemporary accounts described Willard's friendships and her pattern of long-term domestic assistance from women.[40][41][42] She formed the strongest friendships with co-workers.[43] It is difficult to redefine Willard's 19th-century life in terms of the culture and norms of later centuries, but some scholars describe her inclinations and actions as aligned with same-sex emotional alliance (what historian Judith M. Bennett calls "lesbian-like").[44][45][46][47][48][49]
Controversy over civil rights issues
In the 1890s, Willard came into conflict with African-American journalist and anti-lynching crusader
Willard repeatedly denied Wells' accusations and wrote that "the attitude of the society [WCTU] toward the barbarity of lynching has been more pronounced than that of any other association in the United States,"[52] and she maintained that her primary focus was upon empowering and protecting women, including the many African-American members of the WCTU. While it is true that neither Willard nor the WCTU had ever spoken out directly against lynching, the WCTU actively recruited black women and included them in its membership.
After their acrimonious exchange, Willard explicitly stated her opposition to lynching and successfully urged the WCTU to pass a resolution against lynching. She, however, continued to use the rhetoric that Wells alleged incited lynching.[53] In her pamphlets Southern Horrors and The Red Record, Wells linked rhetoric portraying white women as symbols of innocence and purity that black men could not resist, as facilitating lynchings.
Wells also believed that Willard condoned segregation by permitting the practice within WCTU's southern chapters. Under Willard's presidency, the national WCTU maintained a policy of "states rights" which allowed southern charters to be more conservative than their northern counterparts regarding questions of race and the role of women in politics.[54]
Publications
- Woman and Temperance, or the Work and Workers of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Hartford, Conn: Park Pub. Co., 1883.
- How to Win: A Book For Girls. NY: Funk & Wagnalls, 1886. reprinted 1887 & 1888.
- Nineteen Beautiful Years, or, Sketches of a Girl's Life. Chicago: Woman's Temperance Publication Association, 1886.
- Glimpses of Fifty Years: the Autobiography of an American Woman. Chicago: Woman's Temperance Publishing Association, 1889.
- A Classic Town: The Story of Evanston. Woman's Temperance Publishing Association, Chicago, 1891.
- President's Annual Address. 1891, Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
- A Woman of the Century (1893) (ed. Willard, Frances E. & Livermore, Mary A.) - available online at Wikisource.
- A Wheel Within a Wheel. How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle. 1895.
- Do Everything: a Handbook for the World's White Ribboners. Chicago: Woman's Temperance Publishing Association, [1895?].
- Occupations for Women. Cooper Union, NY: Success Company. 1897.
See also
- List of civil rights leaders
- List of suffragists and suffragettes
- List of women's rights activists
- Timeline of women's suffrage
- Descendants of Simon Willard
Sources
- ^ ISBN 9780742517172. Retrieved June 19, 2014.
- ^ hedrick, Amanda (April 10, 2011). "Progressive Protestantism: the Life of Frances Willard, 1839–1896". American Religious Experience. Archived from the original on March 2, 2014. Retrieved June 19, 2014.
- ^ ISBN 0-8078-1697-3.
- ^ "Learning – Frances Willard (1864-1874)". sites.northwestern.edu. Northwestern Libraries. Retrieved July 31, 2020.
- ^ "Frances E. Willard: Years of Challenge (1859-1874)". Illinois During the Gilded Age, 1866-1896. Northern Illinois University Libraries. 2007. Archived from the original on May 25, 2010. Retrieved March 24, 2010.
- ISBN 9785874228309.
- ^ "WCTU Publications". June 7, 2012. Archived from the original on June 7, 2012. Retrieved August 22, 2019.
- ^ Benschoten, William Henry Van (1907). Concerning the Van Bunschoten Or Van Benschoten Family in America: A Genealogy and Brief History ... (Public domain ed.). A. V. Haight Company. p. 359. Retrieved December 23, 2021. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- Newspapers.com. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ISBN 0-313-30661-3. Retrieved June 19, 2014.
- ^ a b "Frances Willard". Encyclopædia Britannica. July 20, 2013. Retrieved June 19, 2014.
- ^ Joan Cashin, First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis' Civil War (Harvard University Press 2006) pp. 241-44. 252-253
- ^ Willard, Frances Elizabeth. Home protection manual. New York: Published at "The Independent" office, 1879.
- ^ a b c Willard, Frances E. (1890). A White Life for Two. Chicago: Women's Temperance Publishing Association.
- ^ Frances Willard, "Speech At Queen's Hall, London," June 9, 1894, in Citizen and Home Guard, July 23, 1894, WCTU series, roll 41, frame 27. Reprinted as "The Average Woman," in Slagell, "Good Woman Speaking Well," 619-625.
- ISBN 978-0393000399. Retrieved June 19, 2014.
- ^ "Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard (1839–1898)". Women Christian Temperance Union. Archived from the original on June 12, 2014. Retrieved June 19, 2014.
- ^ OCLC 1096495503.
- ISBN 0822319918.
- ISBN 9780807816974.
- ^ Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 50944). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.
- ^ Briggs-Wall, Henrietta (1911). "American Woman and Her Political Peers". Library of Congress. Retrieved June 19, 2014.
- ^ School, Stanford Law (August 13, 2020). "Some Suffragists in the 19th Century Exploited Existing Stereotypes of the Period to Advance Their Cause, says Stanford Legal Historian". Stanford Law School. Retrieved March 29, 2023.
- ^ "FRANCES E. WILLARD". Architect of the Capitol. Retrieved April 29, 2020.
- ^ France Elizabeth Willard
- ^ Famous Americans Issue
- ^ "Willard, Frances E." National Women's Hall of Fame. Retrieved August 22, 2019.
- ^ Gordon, Elizabeth Putnam (1924). Women Torch-bearers: The Story of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. National woman's Christian temperance union publishing house. pp. 216–217. Retrieved July 24, 2022. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ^ "Women's Christian Temperance Union". Adelaidia. October 2, 2015. Retrieved July 3, 2019.
- ^ "Wakefield Street, Adelaide [B 7386]: Photograph". State Library of South Australia. Retrieved July 3, 2019.
- ^ Frances Willard House Museum and Archives Website Retrieved 2016-02-22.
- ^ "Willard Residential College". Northwestern University. Retrieved July 4, 2020.
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ "Frances Willard Schoolhouse". LandmarkHunter.com. Retrieved June 19, 2014.
- ^ "Frances Willard - Willard Middle School". Retrieved October 22, 2019.
- ^ "Parks: Willard Park - City of Berkeley, CA". Archived from the original on November 10, 2019. Retrieved October 22, 2019.
- ^ "The History of Loretto Hospital". Loretto Hospital. Archived from the original on January 24, 2013. Retrieved June 19, 2014.
- ^ Maroukian, Francine (February 20, 2015). "How to Build a Distillery in the Birthplace of Prohibition". Popular Mechanics. Retrieved August 22, 2019.
- ^ "Behind the Scenes at the F.E.W. Spirits Distillery in Evanston, IL". drinks.seriouseats.com. Retrieved August 22, 2019.
- ISBN 0-8090-8703-0.
- ISBN 0-231-12728-6.
- ISBN 0-618-05697-1.
- ISBN 0-231-07488-3.
- ^ Bennett, Judith M.: '"Lesbian-Like" and the Social History of Lesbianisms' Journal of the History of Sexuality Vol. 9, No. 1/2 (Jan. - Apr., 2000), pp. 1-24
- JSTOR 4020149.
- ISBN 1-59213-269-3.
- ISBN 0-226-90784-8.
- ISBN 0-688-13330-4.
- S2CID 143604951.
- ISBN 978-0-375-75445-6. Retrieved June 19, 2014.
- ISBN 978-0060797362.
- ^ "About Southern Lynchings," Baltimore Herald, 20 October 1895 (Temperance and Prohibition Papers microfilm (1977), section III, reel 42, scrapbook 70, frame 153).
- ^ Hackett, Amy (2004). ""Cloaking an Apology for Lawlessness": Ida B. Wells, Frances Willard and the Lynching Controversy, 1890-1894". University of Massachusetts Boston. Archived from the original on April 21, 2016. Retrieved October 14, 2012.
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References
- Baker, Jean H. Sisters: The Lives of America's Suffragists Hill and Wang, New York, 2005 ISBN 0-8090-9528-9.
- Gordon, Anna Adams The Beautiful Life of Frances E. Willard, Chicago, 1898
- McCorkindale, Isabel Frances E. Willard centenary book (Adelaide, 1939) Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Australia, 2nd ed.
- Strachey, Ray Frances Willard, her life and work - with an introduction by Lady Henry Somerset, New York, Fleming H. Revell (1913)
Further reading
Dillon, Mary Earhart (1979). Notable American Women: 1607–1950. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ]
- Anna Adams Gordon, The beautiful life of Frances Elizabeth Willard, 1898 Book online
- William M. Thayer, Women who win, 1896 s. 341–369 (355–383) Book online
Primary sources
- Let Something Good Be Said: Speeches and Writings of Frances E. Willard, ed. by Carolyn De Swarte Gifford and Amy R. Slagell, ISBN 978-0-252-03207-3.
- Correspondence and images of Frances Willard from Kansas Memory, the digital portal of the Kansas historical Society.
External links
- Alpha Phi International Fraternity
- Frances E. Willard Papers, Northwestern University Archives, Evanston, Illinois
- Frances E. Willard Journal Transcriptions, Northwestern University Archives, Evanston, Illinois Archived August 6, 2020, at the Wayback Machine
- Frances Willard House
- Frances Elizabeth Willard (1839-1898) on harvard.edu
- Works by Frances Willard at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)