Background
Ella Alexander Boole was born on July 26, 1858, in Van Wert, Ohio, United States, the daughter of Isaac Newton Alexander, a lawyer, and Rebecca Alban Alexander.
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Ella Alexander Boole was born on July 26, 1858, in Van Wert, Ohio, United States, the daughter of Isaac Newton Alexander, a lawyer, and Rebecca Alban Alexander.
Ella Bolle attended public schools and later college in Ohio, receiving a B. A. degree from the College of Wooster in 1878 and an M. A. degree in 1881.
In 1883, Ella married William Hilliker Boole, a Methodist clergyman and ardent temperance advocate who was a cofounder of the Prohibition party. They moved to New York City and together ran the Willett Street Methodist Church near the Bowery, devoting much of their time to helping alcoholics in the area. After her husband died in 1896, Ella Boole continued her temperance work. She had joined the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1886 as corresponding secretary to the state organization. A strong, handsome woman with executive ability and a clear, effective speaking voice and style, she was elected president of the chapter in 1898 and served in that position until 1903. Boole early saw in women a force for changing and directing society, and adopting Frances Willard's "Do Everything" slogan, she dealt with issues she thought both affected and involved women, including woman's work, child labor, woman suffrage, and religion. She left the WCTU in 1903 to become corresponding secretary for six years for the Women's Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States.
Boole continued to work with numerous women's groups, linking temperance with their causes; at one time she cooperated with Carrie Chapman Catt in a national conference on causes and cures for war. Boole's primary concern was always the prohibition of the sale and use of alcoholic beverages, and in 1909 she returned to the WCTU as president of the New York State branch. She rose to national importance with the temperance movement as it gained influence in a number of states. She was a primary participant in the Washington march of December 7, 1913, and spoke from the Capitol steps. The next year, the first time a vice-president of the WCTU was nominated rather than appointed, she was elected to the office, which she held until 1925. Boole made appearances before Albany and Washington legislative committees, insisting that prohibition could not be divorced from religion and the home and cataloging the women's organizations that endorsed a prohibition amendment and its enforcement. The enactment of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, giving women the vote, appeared to add impetus to the drive for total abstinence.
During the 1920's Boole reached her greatest prominence in public life. In 1920 she was appointed treasurer of the World WCTU, and from then on remained actively associated with the group. In the same year she was the Prohibition party's candidate for the United States Senate and also sought the Republican nomination. Although she favored bonuses and civil service preference for veterans and appealed to "unbossed voters, " she was defeated in the primaries by the incumbent senator, James W. Wadsworth, Jr. She continued to appear before judiciary committees as she and her organization resisted amendments to the Volstead Act that would permit the sale of light wine and beer.
In 1925 Boole was elected president of the WCTU, and as its intransigent leader she traveled to conferences, luncheons, and annual meetings emphasizing strict enforcement of all laws and urging opposition to all moderation in prohibition programs. She watched Congress carefully and was alarmed by newspaper polls indicating that public opinion was turning against strong enforcement of the law. Boole not only was harsh to opponents but also challenged moderates in WCTU ranks. Her aggressiveness extended to the House Judiciary Committee in Washington, which she accused of unfairness and prejudice. Despite her efforts, however, public opinion against prohibition grew strong and in 1930 she was heckled at a meeting of the Women's National Republican Club. Her adamant attitude caused one temperance group to accuse her of weakening the fight to retain the dry law because of her inflexible tactics. In the 1932 election she was further assailed by liberal antiprohibitionists, and in 1934 she was mildly humiliated at a WCTU conference when the mayor of Pittsburgh, William N. McNair, offered her a glass of whiskey.
Ella Boole was a prohibition and temperance activist. She was vice-president of the New York state union of the Women's Christian Temperance Union from 1891 to 1925, when she was elected president of the WCTU, which position she held until 1931. She also wrote a book, Give Prohibition Its Chance (1929); it was aimed at a female audience and went through five printings in that year.
On July 3, 1883, Ella married William Hilliker Boole.
