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Women's Christian Temperance Union as an early Feminist movement
A while back I was studying some United States religious history to figure out why wine isn't served in communion in most Protestant churches and came across an interesting name and interesting early Feminist movement, called the Women's Christian Temperance Union and its leader, Frances Willard. Yes, they were famous for trying to get wine out of communion and at about the same time, Dr. Welch of Vineland, New Jersey figured out how to stop grape juice from fermenting and becoming wine.
The point that fascinates me is that the same movement and people that vastly advanced civil rights in this country, also likely helped create Prohibition of alcohol. Reality is always complex and not the clean story arc that we like to think about. Yet despite this, Frances Willard and the movement she led, were very progressive. Then, it seems that women and churches were the source of liberal change and expansion of civil rights, half of that picture being very hard to conceive of in 2012.
"Although she was not a minister, Frances Willard had several lasting impacts upon American Christianity. First, with her leadership in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Willard and her ladies were against using wine for communion. Beginning in 1876, grape juice began to be used in place of wine in Methodist, Baptist, and Congregational denominations. The Episcopalians, Lutherans, and Catholics continue to use wine.[xlviii] Secondly, because of her outreach, women of all denominations and faiths worked together in a common cause, allowing for more religious tolerance and cooperation in America.
http://are.as.wvu.edu/willard.html
http://are.as.wvu.edu/willard.html
Despite my own judgement of that particular thing that brought Willard to my notice, this movement was very important in civil rights. Willard is arguably a great influence on liberalism as we know it today, and yet like all movements and leaders within them, they are always 'of their time' in fascinating ways.
"Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard (September 28, 1839 – February 17, 1898) was an American educator, temperance reformer, and women's suffragist. Her influence was instrumental in the passage of the Eighteenth (Prohibition) and Nineteenth (Women Suffrage) Amendments to the United States Constitution. Willard became the national president of the World Woman's Christian Temperance Union, or World WCTU, in 1879, and remained president for 19 years. She developed the slogan "Do everything" for the women of the WCTU to incite lobbying, petitioning, preaching, publication, and education. Her vision progressed to include federal aid to education, free school lunches, unions for workers, the eight-hour work day, work relief for the poor, municipal sanitation and boards of health, national transportation, strong anti-rape laws, and protections against child abuse.[1]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Willard_(suffragist)
I'm also thinking about Feminist history and the history of all civil rights movements and how they teach us about important people, who should always be looked at objectively.
The lesson I think is to appreciate the leaders that came before us for what contributions they gave, but to always decide for ourselves the things we value now and not accept unequivocally that great leaders were right about all things, including what we should think.
So when you define "Feminism", the definition should respect history and be accurate, but it should belong to the people that choose to define it and advance it now.
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Wells' anti-lynching campaign brought the two to England concurrently. As Wells described the horrors of American lynchings, British liberals were incredulous that White women such as Willard–who had been heralded in the English press as the "Uncrowned Queen of American Democracy"–would turn a blind eye to such violence. Wells correctly accused Willard of being silent on the issue of lynchings, and of making racial comments which would add fuel to the fire of mob violence.[22] To support her assertion, Wells referred to an interview Willard had conducted during a tour of the South in which Willard had blamed Blacks for the defeat of temperance legislation there and had cast aspersions on the race. "The colored race multiplies like the locusts of Egypt," she had said, and "the grog shop is its center of power... The safety of women, of childhood, of the home is menaced in a thousand localities."[22]
In response, Willard and her powerful hostess and counterpart, Lady Somerset, attempted to use their influence to keep Wells' comments out of the press. Wells responded by revealing that despite Willard's abolitionist forbears and Black friends, no Black women were admitted to the WCTU's southern branches.[citation needed]
In response, Willard and her powerful hostess and counterpart, Lady Somerset, attempted to use their influence to keep Wells' comments out of the press. Wells responded by revealing that despite Willard's abolitionist forbears and Black friends, no Black women were admitted to the WCTU's southern branches.[citation needed]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_B._Wells
Keep in mind - one of the ways Willard brought Southern women into the fold was by making sure the black members marched at the back of the parade.
And she had nothing to say about white men raping black women - as she often played to the 'Jezebel' stereotype of black women that we still see today . . . i.e. - They (black women) by birth are sexual miscreants.