Women's Christian Temperance Union

The Women's Christian Temperance Union was organized by women who were concerned about the destructive power of alcohol and the problems that came along with it. They thought it was a threat to families and society. In many towns in Ohio and New York women met in the fall of 1873 in churches to pray and then marched to the saloons to ask the owners to close their alcohol beverages business. Women in that time period were very active and wanted to "Americanize" every immigrant by trying them to abstain from alcohol. With that they established the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).  Yet they thought they needed to be seen nationally so they became national. The next summer they established the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union. The movement was highly recognized and within the first five years, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union established a network of over 1,000 local groups and began publication of a journal.









Sources: http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/roots-of-prohibition/