1839 - 1898 Hymnal Number: d267 Author of "Where there's drink, there is danger" in Enduring Hymns Willard, Frances. (Churchville, New York, 1839--1898).
It seems as if her forebears passed on a heritage of an iron will and unyielding courage reflecting the rugged rocky New Eng. Hills they loved. Frances Eliz. Was born into this family in Churchville, NY Sept. 28 1839. When she was five they moved to Ohio to enroll in a school that would accept both men and women, Oberlin. Her Father enrolled as a student. And her mother, after the children were no longer babies, enrolled in many courses. They bought several lots and built a house on what is now Willard Court. After several happy years here, for her father’s health they were advised to move to a farm. In 1846 they put their belongings in three prairie schooners, moved to Wisconsin and built another home where for 12 years Frances enjoyed an idyllic life. Her mother’s favorite phrase was “Let a girl grow as a tree grows=according to its own sweet will”. When she was 14 her father and neighbors built a schoolhouse and secured as a teacher “a real live graduate from Yale”. When she was 19, her father chose for her and her sister The Northwestern Female College at Evanston, IL. There her wit and wisdom captured school mates and faculty and she was nominated valedictorian of her class. After graduation she taught out in a lonely school on the prairie, then at her alma mater and at Pittsburgh Female College. “She seemed to have a vocabulary of her own and used words and phrasings of her own coining. A friend wrote “I can see her now surrounded by a bevy of teachers and students, sitting on the steps of an old college, holding them spellbound by the power of her vivid imagination and wit. She had a wonderfully magnetic influence over young girls, believed in them, trusted them, stood by them, often when others condemned, and sought out those who were shy and retiring and had little confidence in themselves. This “magnetic influence”-which today we call charisma is mentioned by others who knew her. Susan Anthony said in her Memorial Tribute to Frances Willard: “She was a bunch of magnetism, possessing that occult force which all leaders must have”. As her own world became wider with travels in this country and abroad she began to ask herself: “What can be done to make the world a wider place for women”? She wrote from Paris her intention to study the women question in Europe and in America “to talk in public on the subject and cast herself with what weight or weakness she possessed against unenlightened public opinion.” She was elected president of the Evanston College for ladies in 1871, the first women to whom that title had been given. The first catalogue for Evanston College contains a statement from President Willard regarding her plan for “self-government”- as vitally important to her then as it was throughout her life. Dean of Northwestern Woman’s College and Prov. Of Aesthetics in Northwestern University, in her were embodied much of the 19th c. civilization and culture. In 1874, who could’ve foreseen that she would become a leader in the Temperance movement in the U.S 1874 was the year of the Women’s Temperance Crusade and the founding of the WTCU in Cleveland. She was moved to help but could not leave her place to do it. She made several speeches declaring the crusade as “everyone’s war. She felt she needed to resign her positions to visit the work of the leaders all around the world. Then came the milestone in her life when she had to make a choice between two positions offered her- Principal of an elegant girl’s school in NYC with a high salary or President of the Chicago branch of the WCTU. She rejected the principal’s position and her career was set. Immediately her guiding hand was felt in local, State, and national unions. In 1879 as president of the National Union, she made the white ribbon the olive branch of peace throughout the states; and it was particularly in the southern states that she was one of the first after the Civil War to give southern women their first experiences in reform activity. She reunited north and south in hope and purpose. She led campaigns for constitutional amendments in various states, and one of her most creative methods was the constructive use of the petition. The Home Protection Petition of Illinois was presented with 200,000 names. Her Purity Petition was presented before legislatures of nearly every state in the union. In 1883 the World’s WCTU was organized. She addressed her famous Polyglot Petition for Home Protection to the Government of the World (Collectively and Severally). 7 ½ million people signed this document petitioning all rulers and representatives to take away the legal guarantees for alcohol and drugs (opium). “We know that clear brains and pure hearts make honest lives and happy homes, and that by these nations prosper and the time is brought nearer when the world shall be at peace”… “We have no power to prevent these great iniquities beneath which the whole world groans, but you have the power to redeem the honor of the nations”…”We therefore come to you with the united voices of representative women of every land, beseeching you to raise the standard of the law to that of Christian morals, to strip away the safeguards and sanctions of the state from the drink traffic and opium trade, and to protect our homes by the total prohibition of these curses of civilization throughout all the territory over which your Government extends.” It was her intention to carry this petition to all English-speaking countries, to the Orient, and various European countries. By the 1897 meeting of the World’s White Ribboners she reported that one copy had been sent to Queen Victoria through Lady Henry Somerset, and copies had gone to Canada, the Scandinavian countries, Japan, Ireland, and Mexico. She brought her wit and wisdom to express her view on every social issue, not only women enfranchisement, but also the “purification of the press”, her dissatisfaction with the exclusion of women from participation in the church, including funerals where she felt it unfair that men only could process as pallbearers . She gave her life unstintingly for women and children via her work for Home Protection. During her stay at NYC she became too ill to carry on the exhaustive work. She was never to recover. Her last memorandum to her secretary was “Don’t fail to put it down that I have always recognized the splendid work done in 1874 by the women of Washington Court House, and that while I regard Hillsboro as the cradle, Washington Court House is the crown of the crusade.”
The Crusade had been the beginning movement of temperance activity that began spontaneously in Hillsboro, Ohio in the winter of 1873-74. In response to a talk given by Dr. Dio Lewis, a lecturer from Mass., the women led by daughter of a former governor and wife of a local judge, marched into local saloons and knelt in prayer. The tactic worked in Hillsboro and was quickly adopted 26 miles away in Washington Court House. This Ohio Women’s crusade spread like wildfire and inspired the organization of the national WCTU in Cleveland in 1874.
With a nature strong but gentle, uncompromising yet pliable, she effected the largest organization of women the world has ever known. She has great insight in the future; she talked about many reforms, some that the world is still talking about. Foremost was education for citizenship; a close second was physical education and sports. No one was more insistent than Frances Willard on vocational training for girls, on equal pay for equal work, a minimum wage and an 8-hour day.
Whittier well summed up her character in these lines written for the base of her marble statue: “She knew the power of banded ill, But felt that love was stronger still, And organized for doing good, The world’s united womanhood”.
--Mary Louise VanDyke, DNAH Archives
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