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1874: Learning to Speak Out

1874 Frances.jpg

Willard in 1874.

When Willard returned to Evanston in 1870, she was asked to speak about her travels—first to groups of women, and then, with fear and trembling, in front of a mixed group at the Methodist Church. “From that time,” Willard later wrote, “dates my public work,” and she soon became known as a gifted and persuasive orator. Her speaking style—often described in the press as “womanly”—would go far in appeasing her audiences’ fears about strong-minded women. Her oratory and her leadership skills (gained from experience as a teacher and administrator) were clearly recognized when she became involved in the newly formed Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in 1874. After joining the new organization in Illinois, Willard attended the national organizing convention in Cleveland in November, 1874, where she was elected National Corresponding Secretary.

Everybody's War Speech

Pictured here is a page from one of her first speeches for the WCTU—which she delivered many times on request by many venues.

”I say there is a war about [alcohol] in America—a war about that sort of thing which changes men so that their mothers after a few years wouldn’t know them" ... "There is another sort of war…There is a war between the rum shops and religion. They stand over against each other, unsurmountable and unalterable foes.” 

“It is everybody’s war great and small from the least to the greatest, and what a war it is.”

Frances E. Willard, Everybody's War.