Anna Gordon

Background

Gordon was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to James M. and Mary Clarkson Gordon, both Christian abolitionists.

Career

When she was three, her family moved to Auburndale. She went on to attend Boston High School, Lasall Seminary, and Mount Holyoke College. Woman"s Christian Temperance Union

Gordon"s younger brother Arthur had died just days before, a traumatic event which had, as Willard later wrote, driven Gordon "Godward".

The two became close friends, with Gordon continuing to play organ for Willard"s meetings

Gordon eventually moved into Willard"s residence as her personal secretary. Gordon subsequently followed her employer on her travels through the United States, Canada and Europe, spending a year in England, mostly as the guests of Lady Henry Somerset.

That same year, Gordon also wrote a memorial biography of Willard (expanded and reprinted in 1905). Upon Lillian Stevens" death in 1914, Anna Adams Gordon became president of the WCTU. During the First World War, Gordon was instrumental in convincing United States. President Woodrow Wilson to harden the federal government"s policies against the manufacture of alcoholic beverages, most notably by criminalizing the use of foodstuffs to make alcohol.

Later, in 1919, temperance organizations scored a major victory with the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which fully established prohibition in the United States.

In November 1922, she was elected president of the World Women"s Temperance Union (WWCTU), and resigned her presidency of the national WCTU organization. She died on June 15, 1931, in Castile, New New York

Connections

Friend:

Lillian M. North. Stevens