Woman and Temperance: The Quest for Power and Liberty, 1873-1990

by Ruth Birgitta Anderson Bordin

Book by Bordin, Ruth

Genres: History, Nonfiction

221 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[Elizabeth]

This book does a really good job of illustrating how ahead of its time the WCTU was at its peak as a Left wing activist organization. Francis Willard was a visionary able to usher an unprecedented number of women into social justice through a mix of decentralized organizational structures and a holistic approach to Temperance. Her outlook of alcoholism being a symptom rather than a cause of inequality and injustice and the "Do Everything" agenda that she promoted as an extension of it mirrors the Werner Commission's findings a century ahead of that group. The tragedy is how few feminist orgs carried on that holistic view of social justice after Willard's death. Shockingly pertinent to today.