It was not until 1873 that the vast amount of drunkenness in our country attracted the attention of the women of America.
A crusade was formed against it in the West, and this led in 1874 to the foundation of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Frances Elizabeth Willard was offered the position of president, an honor she then declined, preferring to work in the ranks; but four years later she yielded to the universal demand, and accepted the chairmanship of this great movement.
This able woman was born at Churchville, very near Rochester, N. Y., on September 28, 1839. Her father, of English descent, was a man of intellectual force, brave, God-fearing; her mother, a woman of strong religious feeling, great courage, and of fine mental equipment. Frances inherited the best qualities of both parents. When she was two years of age, the family removed to Oberlin, Ohio, and about five years later to Janesville, Wisconsin, then almost a wilderness. Here they lived the simple, hard life of pioneers. Frances was at first taught by her mother and a governess; afterward, she and her younger sister entered the Northwestern College at Evanston, from which Frances was graduated.
Mr. Willard removed to Evanston in order to be near his daughters while they were in college, and in 1858 built a house there. Here the younger daughter died, and later Mr. Willard, but Frances and her mother continued to make it their home, even after the death of the only son. Frances named it Rest Cottage, and here she returned each year of her busy life to spend two months with the mother whom she had christened St. Courageous.
Idleness was an impossibility for Frances Willard. After her graduation she taught in a little district school, and from 1858 until 1868 continued the work of teaching in various schools and colleges. In 1868 she went to Europe and spent two years in travel and study. Upon her return she was elected President of the Evanston College for Women, being the first woman in the world to hold such a position. Two years later, when the college became a part of the Northwestern University, Miss Willard became Dean of the Women's College, but as some of her views conflicted with those of the President, she soon resigned the position.
It was about this time that the women of Ohio began fighting the liquor traffic. To use Mrs. Livermore's words, "Frances Willard caught the spirit of the Woman's Crusade and believed herself called of God to take up the temperance cause as her life work."
Every one, even her mother, opposed her, but feeling herself called to the work she gave to it all her energies of heart and soul.
When Miss Willard became President of the Women's Christian Temperance Union in 1879, the yearly income of the Union was only twelve hundred dollars. The movement was too new and too strange to command much understanding or sympathy from the public; the work, so far, had been done without system. Frances Willard at once began to put the machinery in order: she organized bodies of workers and lecturers; she instituted relief work and educative centers; and the numbers of these she constantly increased.
Perhaps Miss Willard's greatest moral asset was the power of winning followers. Many, many women rallied enthusiastically to her support and helped her to carry out her plans. To zeal and intelligence she added charming manners and eloquence. As a leader her ability was marvelous. Love came to her from all sides because love went out from her to everybody.
Her own love of the work was so great that for years she labored without a salary, for the Union had hard struggles to live even after Miss Willard undertook the leadership of it. But with or without salary, never did she spare herself.