The Womenstrongsstrong Christian Temperance Union 1874-1898 Combating.pdfVIP

William Mary Journal of Women and the Law Volume 3 | Issue 1 Article 7 The Womens Chri tian Temperance Union 1874-1898: Combating Dome tic Violence Erin M. Ma son Repository Citation Erin M. Masson, The Womens Christian Temp erance Union 1874-1898: Combating D omestic Violence, 3 Wm. Mary J. Women L. 163 (1997), /wmjowl/vol3/ ss1/7 Copyr ght c 1997 by the authors. Th s article s brought to you by the W ll am Mary Law School Scholarship Repository. /wmjowl ESSAY THE WOMANS CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION, 1874- 1898: COMBATTING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ERIN M. MASSON* Ours is a famous country for protection [of industry, of ideas, and even animals]. Busy with all these gentle, wise, and patriotic measures, there is one place our brothers have forgotten adequ- ately to protect, and that is - Home. The Womans Temperance Crusade, embalmed in the pages that follow, was a protest against this forgetfulness and this neglect. I. INTRODUCTION The Womans Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was truly an organization of women, by women, and for women. The WCTU, founded in 1874, grew to over two hundred thousand women by 1892, and was the largest and most influential womans organization that had existed until that time. 2 Although the WCTU began as a temperance movement, it soon grew into a mass movement for social reform. As the main champion of womens rights, local WCTU chapters provided the primary forum for protecting women from sexual