The Women's Crusade

Ella A. Boole was President of the WCTU from 1925 to 1933. She attended the College of Wooster (Class of 1878) during the height of the nineteenth century wave of the temperance movement and was surely inspired by the efforts of Wooster's Women's Temperance Union.

The novel Ten Night’s in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There, written in 1854 by T.S. Arthur, was a popular tool used by promoters of temperance throughout the nineteenth century to reveal the effect of alcoholism on family life.

Throughout the nation, women of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union were employing tactics to fight for their goal of ending the sale and consumption of alcohol.  Basing their actions on those of this national group, the women of Wooster’s Women’s Temperance Union held regular prayer meetings and urged citizens and saloon-keepers to sign pledges agreeing not to consume or sell alcoholic beverages.  When many of the tavern-keepers continued to sell alcohol, the women paraded through the city, singing hymns and praying outside of the saloons. The city was clearly gaining attention in the national temperance movement, because in May of 1874, the future president of the WCTU, Francis Willard, visited Wooster to give a talk to the women of the city.  A dozen saloons did stop serving alcohol due to the efforts of temperance women in 1874.  One man immediately put his tavern up for auction after attending a temperance prayer meeting.  However, despite the efforts of the Women’s Temperance Union, city regulations made to restrict the sale of alcohol were never enforced, and business at Wooster’s saloons carried on as usual after the initial temperance endeavors of 1874.

Undeterred, the women of the city continued to promote temperance by hosting prayer meetings and convincing citizens to sign pledges promising abstinence from alcohol.  In 1877, the Wooster Dramatic Club even aided in the movement and hosted productions of the temperance drama, “Ten Nights in a Bar Room,” in the Quinby Opera House.  However, the Women’s Temperance Union ultimately failed its goal of eradicating the sale of liquor in the city during the late nineteenth century.¹  

¹ Wooster in 1876, ed. Arnold Lewis (Wooster: Wooster Art Center Museum, 1976), 107-108.