Feminism
March 20, 1868
I believe in the Woman Question more & more. I'm going to give my little help to it in all possible ways.
Perhaps the most remarkable impact made by Frances Willard derived from her lifelong commitment to the “Woman Question.” As an early feminist, Frances Willard considered the basic role of women in everyday life, which included the woman’s role in politics and social spheres. Willard’s “Woman Question” sought to solve the issue by granting women access to political rights through voting. Even though she did not see women’s suffrage during her lifetime, Frances Willard accelerated the movement that eventually won early suffrage rights for some women in the United States.
As a popular orator and social reformer, Frances Willard wrote and spoke at length about the vital impact of women's suffrage. Her role as president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) offered the platform to share these ideas on a large scale. Although she is remembered and revered as a pioneer of the suffrage movement, Frances Willard represented one of many women organized in the United States inside and outside of the WCTU fighting for political rights for women.
March 14, 1896
There is no end of contradiction over the California Con. Susan B. Anthony will not hear to our having it there this year even after the voting on suffrage amendment. On the contrary, we think the liquor people will vote against it anyway & nobody can win the decent element like the WCTU & we believe our soc. has made more converts to woman's cause than any other. But Susan is "set" & I think for good feeling's sake we would better change.
The early journals of Frances Willard expose her early conditions of the “Woman’s Question.” Over the course of her education and career, these theories and practices evolved into a massive movement with numerous leaders across the country. These leaders collaborated and contested each other's work, all while striving for more equal suffrage in the United States.
Frances Willard considered her life’s work centered on the issue of the socio-political rights of women. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union acted as a means to an end for this work. Her focus on temperance acted as a method to access the issue of women’s suffrage from another angle.
Willard wrote, “On the contrary, we think the liquor people will vote against it anyway & nobody can win the decent element like the WCTU & we believe our soc. has made more converts to woman’s cause than any other.” Despite the perhaps incomparable intersectional feminisms of the twenty-first century, Willard’s commitment to women’s suffrage only increased over the course of her career, distinguishing her as an early American women’s activist and feminist.