STATUE OF MISS FRANCES E. WILLARD. Erected in Statuary Hall of the Capitol Building at Washington. Proceedings in the Senate and the House of Representatives in the Occasion of the Reception and Acceptance of the Statue from the State of Illinois.
Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard was an American educator, temperance reformer and women's suffragist.
Background
Frances Willard was born on September 28, 1839, in Churchville, New York, to Josiah Flint Willard and Mary Thompson Hill Willard. In 1846, the family moved to Janesville, Frances (or "Frank, " as she was called) lived vigorous youths, despite the intense moral tone at home.
Education
In 1857, Miss Willard attended Milwaukee Female College, moving the next year to Northwestern Female College. She was class valedictorian.
Career
In 1860, Willard began teaching and three years later taught science at Northwestern. Willard taught successively at Pittsburgh Female College and Genesee Wesleyan Seminary in New York. She also wrote essays. During 1869 - 1870 she toured Europe, spending some time at the Collège de France and the Sorbonne.
Appointed president of Northwestern Female College in 1871, Miss Willard was ambitious to see women's opportunities expanded. When the college merged with Northwestern University, she became her college's dean and professor of esthetics. By 1874 she was convinced that her program would not be aided, and she resigned.
That year was a revivalist one for temperance advocates; Miss Willard participated in prayer and singing sessions. Rejecting outstanding teaching opportunities, she accepted the presidency of the Chicago Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), and rose rapidly as secretary of the state organization and then of the national organization. By 1881, when she became president of the WCTU, she was an outstanding lecturer, organizer, writer and policy maker.
Miss Willard's unique contribution was her feeling that women's work and views were needed in all fields. One of her most famous slogans was "Do Everything. " This point of view was opposed by temperance advocates who narrowed their goals to suppressing the liquor trade. Though Miss Willard helped form the Prohibition party, which influenced the election of 1884, she was also concerned about women's suffrage, peace, labor problems, "social purity" (a topic which many of her associates found indelicate), and Populism, among other causes. Her innumerable correspondents, audiences, conferences, projects, and devoted admirers took her to all parts of the country and abroad. In 1891 she became president of the World's WCTU. Her influence was especially strong in Great Britain. During a visit to New York City she developed influenza and died on February 17, 1898.
Quotations:
"Temperance is moderation in the things that are good and total abstinence from the things that are foul."
"No matter how one may think himself accomplished, when he sets out to learn a new language, science, or the bicycle, he has entered a new realm as truly as if he were a child newly born into the world."
"In externals we advance with lightening express speed, in modes of thought and sympathy we lumber on in stage-coach fashion."
One of her most famous slogans was "Do Everything."
Membership
In 1879, Frances Willard became the national president of Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), and remained president until her death.
Woman's Christian Temperance Union
,
United States
1879 - 1898
Connections
Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard never married and did not have children.