The New International Encyclopædia/Willard, Frances Elizabeth

WILLARD, Frances Elizabeth (1839-98). An American educator and reformer, born at Churchville, N. Y. She graduated at the Northwestern Female College at Evanston, Ill., in 1850; taught in various Western towns, and in 1866-67 was principal of the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary at Lima, N. Y. After two years of travel in Europe and the East, she became professor of æsthetics at Northwestern University, and dean of the Woman's College there. In 1874 she became corresponding secretary of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and from 1870 till her death was its president. Under her guidance the organization of the Union was perfected and its sphere of activity greatly enlarged. In 1882 she became a memher of the executive committee of the Prohibition Party; in 1883 she founded the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union and in 1888 became its president. Besides contributing frequently to the magazines, she wrote a number of books and pamphlets, including: Nineteen Beautiful Years (1868); Woman and Temperance (1883); and Glimpses of Fifty Years (1889). She edited for a time the Chicago Evening Post, and in 1892-98 The Union Signal (Chicago), the official organ of the Union. Miss Willard probably did more for the cause of temperance than any other person of her time. Consult an article in The Methodist Review, vol. lxxx. (1898).