1920: Ratification

The covers of these two issues of the WCTU's Union Signal newspaper document the success of both the Prohibition (18th) and the Suffrage (19th) amendments by 1920. In a quirk of historical fate, Prohibition passed before Woman Suffrage, leaving us to wonder what Prohibition would have looked like if women could have voted in that ratification campaign.

And once the vote for women was won, the WCTU emphasized to its membership that it was a woman’s DUTY to go to the polls. The Franchise Department was replaced by the Department of Christian Citizenship, which focused on providing civic education to women, to help them be intelligent and informed voters who made full use of their new enfranchisement--whether they saw it as a Home Protection Duty or, as Frances Willard herself believed, perceived it as a Citizen's Right.