Marble of Frances Willard by Helen Farnsworth Mears. Located in Statuary Hall.

Frances Willard: America's Forgotten Feminist (1839-1898) by Faith Martin Copyright 1999 Faith Martin Permission granted to print a single copy. Contact at copyright@springvalleypress.com for permission to make further copies. Leading Feminist of the Nineteenth Century In the Capitol in Washington, D. C., each state is represented by a statue of its most honored citizen. Of all the fifty states only Illinois, the Land of Lincoln, is represented by a woman. Her name is Frances Willard. "Who is she?" you ask. At the time of her death in 1898, Frances Willard was the most famous woman in America. Flags flew at half-mast in New York, Chicago, and Washington, D. C. She died in New York, and her body was transported by rail to Chicago, pausing for services along the way like a

Statements published at the time of her death are revealing. Edward Wheeler of the Literary Digest wrote, "She was an awakener of women to the possibilities of true womanhood and she has probably done more than any other person who ever lived to bring to those of her own sex the world over, an adequate realization of their own powers." One New York newspaper wrote: "No woman's name is better known in the English speaking world than that of Miss Willard, save that of England's great queen." Another declared that she was the most influential woman of the age and that her name would become more and more revered in ages to come." That has not happened.

Today, many people have never heard of Frances Willard. On the other hand, her contemporaries, who were lesser lights during their lifetime--Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Emma Willard--have immediate name recognition.

How could anyone drop completely from the consciousness of a nation after having been so famous during her lifetime? Bordin argues that the fortunes of the temperance movement are to blame. At a crucial point in her career, Willard accepted the presidency of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and committed her enormous talents and prestige to the cause of Prohibition. Even though she died a twenty years before the passage of the 18^th Amendment, she is credited with being the person most responsible for organizing the movement that brought Prohibition into being.

The eventual failure of Prohibition marked a turning point in the public interest in Frances Willard. She, like the social experiment she helped bring about, was deemed best forgotten. This is unfortunate, because Frances Willard accomplished far more than convincing the nation to abstain from alcohol. She was the most eloquent and respected voice of the women's social justice movement in the late nineteenth century. Throughout her lifetime Willard articulated a broad vision for women's rights in America. She was an innovative thinker who advocated many reforms that have become a permanent part of our culture. To forget her is to lose a rich chapter in the history of the women's movement in the United States.

A second factor in Willard's fading from our collective memories is the changes that have taken place in feminism. Nineteenth century feminism was, in the words of her cousin, Emma Willard, an exercise in "pure practical Christianity." Its reforms were justified on Christian principles. Twentieth century feminism, on the other hand, has been secularized. Some of its most prominent leaders openly criticize Christianity while others view the church as a patriarchal monolith to be thwarted and overcome. Willard's pleas for justice, founded as they were upon Christian principles, are almost beyond the grasp of the late twentieth century feminists.

While it would be an overstatement to say that all nineteenth century feminists shared Willard's commitment to the Christian faith, it would be equally wrong to assert that she stood alone in her position. These women rode the crest of a new social consciousness that spoke from a cultural consensus about the need to apply Christian principles to every day life for the betterment of society.

Willard taught that women displayed God's image through reason and intellect. A woman was morally responsible to her Creator to develop her intellect and to use it in God's service. Women should not bear the exclusive burden of being the virtuous, pious sex, the conscience of society, while men went about their business unencumbered by morality. Willard insisted that both sexes were called to righteousness.

While strange to the ears of modern feminists, Willard promoted the nineteenth century notion of spheres, believing that men and women had different areas of operation--somewhat like the conservative Christian teaching on male and female roles today. But the similarity with contemporary Christian conservatism breaks down immediately because Willard did not limit women to their sphere. In fact, she insisted that women be free to enter the men's arena if that be their choice.

For herself, Willard rejected marriage and children, but she truly honored women who chose that as their sole career. In fact, she saw herself as their defender. Her strongest crusades politically were under the title of "home protection." It was her stated goal to see that laws and society protected women in their roles as wives and mothers, but at the same time allowed women to move freely in society and careers, if they chose.

Bordin reports, "In promoting domesticity and at the same time urging women to 'Do everything,' Willard gave women the best of both worlds. She did not challenge existing social structures, yet she led women out of the home to work for the betterment of society and compelled men to praise them for it."

Willard was a fierce defender of "womanliness," believing that a woman should first of all be womanly. She was careful to cultivate a feminine demeanor for herself believing it to be a positive gift given to women. Women belonged in the mainstream of society, not because they were the same as men, but because women had something to offer. For instance, she felt that women preachers would be able to restore the balance of the sexes in the churches because of their unique ability to appeal to men.

"The masses of the people have forsaken God's house, and solace themselves in the saloons or the Sunday newspaper. But the masses will go to hear women when they speak. Every woman who leads a life of weekday holiness, has the Gospel in her looks, however plain her face and dress may be, has round her head the sweet Madonna's halo, in the eyes of every man who sees her. She speaks to him with the cadence of his own mother's voice. The devil knew what he was doing when he exhausted sophistry to keep woman down and silent . . . Men have been preaching well nigh two thousand years, and the large majority of the converts have been women. Suppose now that women should share the preaching power, might it not be reasonably expected that a majority of the converts under their administration would be men? Indeed, how else are the latter to have a fair chance at the Gospel? . . . Why, then should the pulpit be shorn of half its power?"

While there was diversity in the woman's movement, that diversity rested upon a consensus about what constituted orthodox Christianity. In later years, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote the Woman's Bible (a controversial book since it implicitly rejected key portions of Scripture), Willard was careful to disassociate herself from it--although she and Stanton were in agreement on most other things.

Throughout her career, Willard was as adamant in professing her Christian faith and as she was her feminism. She felt no pressure to chose one over the other.

Willard sprang from a long line of distinguished persons including the founder of Concord, Massachusetts, a president of Harvard College, and a pastor of Old South Church. Poor health hampered her father's ambition and consequently she was reared quietly on a farm in Wisconsin.

Her childhood on an isolated farm, far from being a handicap, put her early development in the hands of her mother who had studied at Oberlin College in the days when few women were college bred. The family was dedicated to the education and advancement of their children, and Frances was recognized to be exceptional and given the best education that could be offered a young woman. At the age when most girls were given fairy tales, Frances learned to read the Slave's Friend, an abolitionist paper. Years later she wrote, "That earliest book of all my reading, stamped upon me the purpose to help humanity, the sense of brotherhood of all nations as really one, and of God as the equal Father of all races."

While at home, she studied with small groups of neighbor children and received a remarkably good education. But she must have been restless for in her diary she once wrote, "Was I never made for nothing higher? Can I never soar?" As an adult, she wrote, "I never knew what it was not to aspire. I always wanted to react upon the world about me to my utmost ounce of power; to be widely known, loved, and believed in--the more widely the better. Every life has its master passion; this has been mine."

All her life Willard did her best to avoid housework--and her childhood was the same. Although she loved her sister, it was her brother who was her much admired model. She followed him around the farm and participated in his activities. She spent many hours writing a journal, perfecting her writing skills.

When she was seventeen, Willard left home for the first time to attend a series of women's seminaries, receiving the bulk of her formal education in bits and pieces. One biographer labeled these a remarkably good educational experience.

Following her studies, Willard entered a period of preparation that makes confusing telling because of the frequency with which she changed activities. But it can be summed up by saying that she taught, studied, traveled, and lectured. She became quite prominent as a speaker and did evangelistic work for Dwight L. Moody. Her relationship with Moody ended when she realized that he had pegged her as the "woman's speaker and would not allow her to reach fuller expression by addressing mixed groups."

At the close of this period, Willard became friends with a young woman who had convinced her wealthy father to finance the two of them on three-year tour of Europe. Her European experience was fundamental in setting her values and opinions on women.

Willard's earliest interests had been in the women's suffrage movement, but she had declined to take a public stand since, in her own words, "she loved approbation and feared rejection." But on returning from Europe, Willard determined to speak out on the woman's movement--or on the "woman question" as it was then called.

Upon her return from Europe, Willard became engaged to a promising divinity student, Charles Fowler, described as "intelligent, handsome, audacious of speech, and strong minded"--a man who would later become the president of Northwestern University, editor of the Christian Advocate, and a Methodist bishop. Marriage to Fowler would have provided Willard with entry into the public arena as the wife of a prominent man.

In her autobiography, Willard is very reticent about her reasons, but after a few months she broke the engagement. There is evidence that she understood marriage to be an abdication of independence. During her engagement she wrote, "What it might be to give oneself up so fearlessly--somewhat as we do to God. To feel the supremacy of a loftier, stronger nature . . . Yet I do not feel quite sure that it is a possibility of my nature ever to give myself up."

Following this engagement Willard had one other attachment that did not develop into an engagement. She also wrote in her biography of a secret love that she thought would sometime be revealed, but so far remains a mystery.

Charles Fowler did not leave her life, however. Their paths were to cross several times since they both became prominent in the Methodist church, and at each occasion he became her adversary.

In the nineteenth century female world, loving female friendships were an acceptable form of social interaction. As professional women took up careers and found themselves without husbands and children, a partial solution was found in close intimate friendships with other women. These relationships, while passionate, were not sexual.

Bordin writes, "The new professional woman also found the support of these special relationships of crucial importance in carrying out her work. The spectrum of choices meant that in the nineteenth century no one looked askance at the devoted daughter who lavished care and affection on a widowed mother. The young married woman was not so exclusively involved with her husband that she could not cling to the companionship of a special woman friend who had shared the confidences of her youth. The bachelor son who devoted his life to his mother was not seen as an aberration. Victorian society provided many avenues in which supportive emotional relationships could take place."

Willard developed many close and long lasting friendships with women--not the least was her own widowed mother around whom she centered her life. Another close companion throughout Willard's lifetime was Ann Gordon. There were numerous women with who she spent long months, traveled, and corresponded. They gave one another unselfconscious emotional intimacy, financial assistance, and were political allies.

Once she had returned from her European tour and turned down offers of marriage, Frances Willard set about to secure a career for herself. Her father, sister, and brother had died, and she had become her mother's sole support. Her first choice was to accept the position of president at Northwestern's Ladies College. She was its founding president and is credited with introducing an innovative approach to women's education.

By Willard's plan, women could either remain entirely within the structure of the Ladies College or branch out into traditional male fields through classes at Northwestern University. They might even earn a degree from Northwestern; but the women at all times belonged to, and were under the authority of the Ladies College. This affiliate plan, which she set up, was later adopted at Radcliff and Barnard Colleges.

Her college was a huge success, but her stay there was short lived. A new president came to Northwestern--Charles Fowler. Fowler set about to undercut her program, saying that the women were under the authority of the University and no longer under the Ladies College. The male students began harassing her and did their best to humiliate her in the classroom. The issue became a political one and was argued in the press. Fowler was made to appear the liberal wishing to give women freedom while Willard was painted as the conservative.

Women flocked to her college. Other universities that did open their doors to women provided nothing for their nurture, and they were forced to fend for themselves in a hostile male environment. But Willard's position was not politically strong enough to withstand the pressure. Even though she was keenly appreciated by her students and had tenure, she resigned.

She later described those years as the most difficult of her life.

The WCTU was founded in 1874 in response to widespread concern that American society was breaking down. Alcohol abuse was rampant. There were no legal limits on the alcoholic content of whisky, and it was often lethal. The problem of a man drinking his paycheck at the tavern before going home was common. A wife had no legal right to her husband's paycheck, and tavern owners were not inclined to stop serving husbands. At the same time, there were no laws protecting wives from physical abuse. Neither was there public welfare to support starving women and children--of which there were many.

Carrie Nation and others started a moral campaign appealing to the conscience of tavern owners, but to no avail. As soon as one tavern closed another opened. It was decided that only through legislation would any social change take place. A new image and a more educated form of leadership for the WCTU was sought, and Frances Willard proved to be the logical choice.

Although raised in a middle class home and highly educated, Willard knew first hand the problem of alcohol abuse. Her own brother was troubled by alcoholism. Both of his sons became alcoholics and were a constant concern for Willard. She assumed responsibility for them following her brother's death and was always available to them. One nephew was able to overcome his addiction, but the other could not.

Willard did not believe that alcohol was intrinsically evil; she confessed to enjoying wine while traveling in Europe, but renounced it altogether when she became convinced that alcoholic excesses were destroying society. Her beloved brother's losing battle with alcoholism was for her a sufficient demonstration of the capricious nature of alcohol's choice of victims and as well as its power to destroy the lives of individuals and grievously affect their families. Eliminating alcohol from society seemed the only reasonable step to take.

Each year, as president of the WCTU, Willard published an address. In this long paper she proposed a plan of work and ideas for the betterment of society. Her messages always went beyond the issue of alcohol. During the year, she spoke and traveled and used her personal influence to accomplish the wide range of items on her agenda. At first, Willard campaigned for women's suffrage in a muted vocabulary, framing the issue in terms of giving women the ability to vote for "home protection." In this way, she gradually brought the WCTU along with her.

Her life as president of the WCTU was one of constant travel in the United States and Europe. Her style was winsome, evangelical, inspiring, and conciliatory. One biographer makes frequent mention of her ability to compromise and to slowly win her constituency over to her opinion. As she traveled around the country, she hired local secretaries to carry on her massive correspondence. She was said to keep six secretaries busy simultaneously. Material written in her own hand is voluminous but extremely hurried and virtually illegible.

Nothing concerning women escaped Willard's attention. She campaigned for change in prostitution laws, attacking grievous situations that were allowed to flourish. Prostitution in some lumber camps amounted to child slavery. The age of consent in twenty states was a mere ten years of age, and in one it was seven. According to Willard, the laws of purity were to be equally binding on men and women. The sexual crimes of men must not go unpunished. The men who patronized a prostitute should be equally guilty under the law as the prostitute who served him.

On the subject of rape, Willard wrote, "It is by holding men to the same standard of morality that society shall rise to higher levels, and by punishing with extreme penalties such men as inflict upon women atrocities compared with which death would be infinitely welcome. When we reflect that in Massachusetts and Vermont it is a greater crime to steal a cow than to abduct and <rape> a girl, and that in Illinois <rape> is not considered a crime, it is a marvel not to be explained that we go the even tenor of our way, too delicate, too refined, too prudish to make any allusion to these awful facts, much less take up arms against these awful crimes. We have been the victims of conventional cowardice too long."

Under Willard, the WCTU worked for the development of Traveler Aid to assist women in their attempt to remain pure while searching for work. They also established homes for the reclamation of prostitutes.

One of Willard's most outstanding achievements was her global arousal of public opinion with regard to the international traffic in narcotics. The WCTU circulated a petition gaining 8 million signatures worldwide, representing 50 languages. This petition asked governments to stop the sale of opium and other narcotics.

Fashion itself had become a health hazard for women with the popularity of spider thin waists. Women were suffering deformity and serious illness in an attempt to be fashionable. The national convention of the WCTU in 1885 sent a petition to fashion editors to "make the figures on your fashion plates conform more nearly to the normal standard and the conditions requisite for the maintenance of health."

Willard also promoted sports for women. She herself became a fan of the bicycle and declared it a legitimate exercise for women. One of her vacations was a bicycle tour of Europe.

The WCTU did not just push for Prohibition, but instituted small reforms that would enable persons to remain sober. Town squares, one by one, became equipped with fresh fountains of healthy drinking water so that thirsty farmers did not have to enter a saloon when they came to town. It worked among immigrant families teaching them English, American cookery, shopping, and to abandon European styles of drinking. It was at WCTU insistence that milk was put on sale at Ellis Island. Previously only beer had been available.

Willard was active in prison work. She sought to have men and women quartered separately. She urged that a woman officer be established for every jail or prison where women were housed. By 1894, the police matron was a matter of course in the United States. Characteristically, Willard proposed the next step--a woman police officer to patrol the streets.

In 1886, Willard distributed an address to "Working Men and Women--Brothers and Sisters of a Common Hope." It commended the Knights of Labor, the leading labor group of the time, for its broad platform of mutual help "which recognizes neither sex, race, nor creed." It also praised their tendency to elevate women industrially by claiming "equal pay for equal work."

While on a bicycle tour of Europe, Willard heard about the plight of the Armenian refuges who had escaped massacre in Turkey. She left her vacation and joined General Booth of the Salvation Army. Together they established a relief station to alleviate the suffering. Three hundred Armenians were sent to the United States and sponsored by WCTU families--an impressive relief operation by any standards.

In all of this social work, Willard did not neglect the spiritual message of the WCTU. The WCTU sponsored Bible readings and gospel work in prisons and police stations, among railroad employees, soldiers, sailors, and lumbermen. At the national level, a superintendent was in charge of each of these areas of ministry. She was assisted by local workers and coordinators. "These," wrote Willard, "make an aggregate of several thousands of women who are regularly studying and expounding God's word to the multitude, to say nothing of the army in home and foreign missions, who are engaged in church evangelism."

As her life drew to a close, Willard finally became outspoken about a controversial matter within Christianity. In 1886, she wrote an article for Homiletic Review defending the right of women to preach. In 1888, she published a book, Woman in the Pulpit, which contained an expanded version of the article.

In this book, Willard states the case for women preachers. She points out the inconsistencies of traditional theology that exclude women from preaching and finishes with an exegesis of Scripture that supports the women preaching. Her line of reasoning is from the life of Christ and his commissioning of women who--along with the male apostles--were witnesses of his life, death, and resurrection.

Willard points out Scripture's explicit authorization of women to prophecy and then discusses Paul's definition of prophecy. "He that prophecieth, speaketh unto men to edification and exhortation and comfort." And, "He that prophecieth edifieth the church." She concludes, "And in view of the foregoing statements and the careful direction of the Apostle as to the manner of dress of women when they prophesied, or preached, there can be no doubt that they did preach in the early church."

Willard concludes with these words, "Let me, as a loyal daughter of the church, urge upon younger women who feel a call, as I once did, to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ, their duty to seek admission to the doors that would hardly close against them now, in any theological seminary, save those of the Roman, Episcopal, and Presbyterian churches; let me pleadingly beseech all Christian people who grieve over the world's great heartache, to encourage every true and capable woman, whose heart God has touched, in her wistful purpose of entering upon that blessed Gospel ministry, through which her strong yet gentle words and work may help to heal that heartache, and to comfort the sinful and the sad 'as one whom his mother comforteth.'"

The Christian church honors Frances Willard for her temperance work, but her opinions on women, their place in society and church, are suppressed. Beverly Lehaye, in her book, The Restless Woman, goes so far as to deny any connection between feminism and Willard. She stoutly declares Willard "a Christian"--as if Christianity and feminism were mutually exclusive.

It is true that the word "feminism" had not been coined in Willard's time. The movement she joined was framed in terms of the "woman question" or "woman's suffrage." Willard employed both these phrases in her rhetoric and ardently supported the issues put under the umbrella of the "woman question."

On the other hand, modern feminism more or less ignores Willard because of her outspoken devotion to the Christian faith. Yet her record as the leading feminist of the nineteenth century cannot be denied. When the first Women's Congress was organized in Washington, D. C., she was the overwhelming choice for its founding president.

By the time Willard assumed the presidency of the WCTU, she was well known as a powerful advocate of women's suffrage--so much so that she was opposed in her election by those who felt she would turn the WCTU away from temperance and concentrate its considerable influence on women's rights. This did not happen. Willard did not neglect temperance as president of the WCTU; but neither did she renounce feminism.

From the time she assumed presidency of the WCTU until her death, Willard used its powerful position to pursue her broad vision for sweeping social reforms to benefit women. The recovery of her memory is an important step in bringing God's truth to bear on the needs of women in the century that lies before us.