Miss Frances E. Willard

Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard (September 28, 1839 - February 17, 1898) was an American educator, temperance reformer, and women's suffragist. Willard became the national president of Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1879 and remained president until her death in 1898. Her influence continued in the next decades, as the Eighteenth (Prohibition) and Nineteenth (Women Suffrage) Amendments to the United States Constitution were adopted. Willard developed the slogan "Do Everything" for the WCTU, encouraging members to engage in a broad array of social reforms through lobbying, petitioning, preaching, publishing, and education. During her lifetime, Willard succeeded in raising the age of consent in many states, as well as passing labor reforms including the eight-hour work day. Her vision also encompassed prison reform, scientific temperance instruction, Christian socialism, and the global expansion of women's rights. Willard was born in 1839 to Josiah Flint Willard and Mary Thompson Hill Willard in Churchville, near Rochester, New York. She was named after English novelist Frances (Fanny) Burney, the American poet Frances Osgood, and her sister, Elizabeth Caroline, who had died the previous year. She had two other siblings: her older brother, Oliver, and her younger sister, Mary. Her father was a farmer, naturalist, and legislator. Her mother was a schoolteacher. In 1841 the family moved to Oberlin, Ohio, where, at Oberlin College Josiah Willard studied for the ministry, and Mary Hill Willard took classes. They moved to Janesville, Wisconsin in 1846 for Josiah Willard's health. In Wisconsin, the family, formerly Congregationalists, became Methodists. Frances and her sister Mary attended Milwaukee Normal Institute, where their mother's sister taught. In 1858, the Willard family moved to Evanston, Illinois, and Josiah Willard became a banker. Frances and Mary attended the North Western Female College (no affiliation with Northwestern University) and their brother Oliver attended the Garrett Biblical Institute.