1898-1920: Continuing Willard's Work
An Unexpected Obstacle
After Willard’s death, the WCTU continued to endorse woman suffrage as a Home Protection duty. The WCTU never wavered from its position that temperance was its primary goal and that suffrage was the means to achieve a prohibition amendment to the Constitution.
The National Woman’s Suffrage Association, however became increasingly concerned that, without Willard’s unique contribution, the WCTU’s endorsement was counter-productive, tying woman’s vote too closely to Prohibition and risking loss of support—especially from men. In 1899, a year after Willard’s death, NAWSA leader Carrie Chapman Catt sent the leaders of the National WCTU a four-page letter asking the WCTU to step back from association with NAWSA. The letter thanked the WCTU for its hard work for suffrage, and acknowledged that NAWSA and the WCTU were the most prominent proponents of woman suffrage. Still, NAWSA was a single-issue organization, while the WCTU sought reforms on many fronts.
But the Franchise (Suffrage) Department of the WCTU was a smoothly oiled machine, working effectively on local, state, and national levels; its efforts were well publicized. The WCTU’s Union Signal weekly newspaper reported on the activities of the national suffrage organizations. This photo from a 1912 Union Signal shows the WCTU presidents of states where the legislature had enacted woman suffrage laws. Throughout the campaign for Suffrage, women across the country took the leadership skills they had learned in the WCTU and applied them to working for suffrage, too—often wearing both hats at once.
