Frances Willard

(1839 - 1898)

In 1879 the educator Frances Willard became president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, a position she held until her death at age fifty-eight. Believing that the WCTU should “do everything,” she organized for a number of causes besides the Eighteenth Amendment, including women’s suffrage, prison reform, the eight-hour workday, and a living wage. Her books include How to Win: A Book For Girls, Glimpses of Fifty Years: the Autobiography of an American Woman, and A Wheel Within a Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle.