2-918-546 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Women's Christian Temperance Union - Mrs. Lillian Stevens And Mrs. Anna Gordon, 1911. [American temperance advocates and social reformers: Lillian M. N. Stevens helped launch the Maine chapter of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), and was editor-in-chief of 'The Union Signal'. Anna Adams Gordon was the WCTU national president. The stated purpose of the organisation was to create a "sober and pure world" by abstinence, purity, and evangelical Christianity. Thousands of women marched into liquor stores and bars and demanded that owners sign a pledge to stop selling alcoholic beverages. As these women advocated for temperance and the affairs of their homes, they also demanded to have an equal role in public activity. "The temperance movement...gave women the opportunity to be engaged in public political life for the first time." Tara Isabella Burton in "The Feminist History of Prohibition"].