Background
Woolley, John Granville, , Ohio 1850 1922 Male Prohibitionist prohibitionist, was born at Collinsville, Ohio, the son of Edwin C. and Elizabeth (Hunter) Woolley.
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John Granville Woolley
Edit ProfileEducation
He attended smalltown schools and Ohio Wesleyan University, where he graduated in 1871, then enrolled in the law school of the University of Michigan and graduated in 1873.
Career
By her he had three sons.
About the same time, 1885-86, he was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court.
He was "on the verge of suicide" (W. E. Johnson) in 1888 when, in his own words, he "became a Christian and a party Prohibitionist at the same instant" (Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, p. 2909).
This was a turning point in his life.
Thereafter he eschewed drink and dedicated himself to driving it from the lives of others.
In 1901 and again in 1905, he made tours abroad.
In New Zealand he gave vigor to the local prohibition movement through more than thirty (Johnson) lectures delivered before great audiences.
In Hawaii he established a branch of the Anti-Saloon League, of which he was made superintendent in 1907.
In 1898, at Chicago, Woolley and an associate began the publication of a prohibition periodical called the Lever.
While in Spain on this assignment he died.
His body was returned to Paris, Ill. , for burial.
He projected the Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem (6 vols. , 1925 - 30), later completed by the American Issue Publishing Company of Westerville, Ohio.
[Who's Who in America, 1922-23; N. Y. Times, Aug. 14, 1922; Standard Encyc.
of the Alcohol Problem, vol.
VI (1930); letters from William E. ("Pussyfoot") Johnson. ]
Connections
He continued his prohibition activities until 1921, when failing health caused his retirement, but the death of his wife shortly thereafter left him so lonely that when the World League against Alcohol asked him to survey the drink problem in Europe, he accepted.
- married:
- Gerhardt
- Wife:
- W.
- Friend:
- W.
On July 26, 1873, he married Mary Veronica Gerhardt of Delaware, Ohio.
The most important of his books, all of them dealing with prohibition and consisting for the most part of reprints of his editorials and speeches, are: Seed (1893); The Christian Citizen (1900); A Lion Hunter (1900); Temperance Progress of the Century (1903), with W. E. Johnson; South Sea Letters (1906), with his wife; and Civic Sermons (8 vols., 1911).
By his friend W. E. Johnson he was compared to Wendell Phillips in his power over his audiences.
