Court of Military Appeals;
Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
While claiming a common pedigree with abolitionists and even, to a lesser extent, the civil rights movement, Hynes neglects to mention another prominent example of religious involvement in American politics: the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union and its prohibitionist progeny.
Although born in New York State, this educator, suffragist, reformer, and leader of the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union was raised near Janesville and attended the Milwaukee Seminary.
Some Protestant lobby leaders, such as Frances Willard of the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union and Wayne Wheeler of the Anti-Saloon League, are well remembered and at least one, antipornography campaigner Anthony Comstock, still qualifies as notorious.
In New Zealand, as Patricia Grimshaw notes, Jane Foley-herself the daughter of a Maori mother and an Irish sea captain--married first a Maori and then an Irishman and was an active member of the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the most prominent women's organization in the colony.
He charts the path of the early temperance movement, which began in the late-1700s, to the mid-1800s group the Washingtonians to the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which started in 1874.
Among the largest and most influential were the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union, General Federation of Women's Clubs, National Association of Colored Women (NACW), and National Congress of Mothers (NCM).
The
Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) favored both Prohibition and votes for women.
"Once founded, churches and chapters linked to the largest federations took firm root and became the enduring core of civil society in modernizing America." The chapters flourished, they say, thanks in part to the efforts of national and state federation leaders, such as Thomas Wildey of the Odd Fellows and Frances Willard of the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union, who "were constantly on the move," spreading ideas and recruiting members.
Groups such as the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the Federated Women's Institutes of Canada, and the National Council of Women of Canada (NCWC) pressed the Canadian government and respective prime ministers, Sir Robert Borden, Arthur Meighen, and finally William Lyon Mackenzie King, for amendments and clarification of the Act.
The
Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), organized in 1874, became under the leadership of Frances Willard the largest single women's group of the nineteenth century.