The National Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was founded following a series of women-led anti-saloon protests in the early 1870s. At the 1874 New York Chautauqua Assembly, women temperance agitators planned the national convention in Cleveland, Ohio where the WCTU was officially formed. Under the guidance of Annie Turner Wittenmyer, the WCTU quickly grew to include thousands of members across the United States. Frances Willard succeeded Wittenmyer in 1879 and directed efforts toward increasing women's involvement in politics. Initially through the lens of temperance, the WCTU became deeply involved in U.S. moral reformation issues including immigration, poverty, and women's suffrage and founded the National Council for Women and the International Council of Women. The WCTU campaigned for prohibition of alcohol and tobacco, labor reform, purity education, women's rights, and social services through a robust publishing program, local and national demonstrations and events, child and adult educational outreach, and political lobbying.
The WCTU experienced aggressive growth throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, reaching its peak in the late 1920s. The WCTU was instrumental in the success of the women's suffrage movement, the constitutional ban on alcohol in the United States (1920-1933), and the 20th century anti-tobacco movement. In the post-Prohibition era, the WCTU continued to campaign for legislation against alochol, tobacco, and other narcotics and remained supportive of social conservatism. The WCTU's presence in Oregon was evidenced by more than eighty local chapters and the construction of WCTU-sponsored drinking fountains in the communities of La Grande and Roseburg. The WCTU continues to operate today, identifying itself as the "oldest voluntary, non-sectarian woman's organization in continuous existence in the world."
Ruth Tibbits Tooze (born 1901) served as Vice President of the Oregon WCTU in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1959, she was elected to serve as the WCTU's ninth national president, a position she held until 1974. Tooze was active in the WCTU's outreach campaigns, targeting youth through educational opportunities and providing guidance for the WCTU's Loyal Temperance Legion (for children ages six to twelve) and the Youth Temperance Council (ages thirteen to twenty).
The Ruth Tibbits Tooze Papers are comprised of materials collected by Tooze, Vice President of the Oregon Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), between 1938 and 1940. Included are administrative documents from the Oregon WCTU; materials documenting the WCTU's alcohol education initiatives; an extensive collection of press releases and published WCTU literature; and temperance and religious materials created by other organizations. Records include correspondence, manuscript notes, typescripts, budget records, meeting agendas, pamphlets and leaflets, press releases, educational planning documents, songsheets, event programs, and newsclippings.
The Ruth Tibbits Tooze Papers are arranged into one series: I: National Woman's Christian Temperance Union Records, 1938-1940.
The collection is open for research.
Ruth Tibbits Tooze Papers (MSS Tooze), Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections & Archives Research Center, Corvallis, Oregon.
The Ruth Tibbits Tooze Papers were acquired by the Special Collections & Archives Research Center in 2014.
The
Correspondence with Tooze can be found in the
This file is comprised of a letter from F. D. L. Squires, of the WCTU's Publicity Research Council, to Tooze planning a Youth Temperance Council (YTC) campaign to monitor print media for temperance-related content; drafts of YTC resolutions adopted in September 1938; a draft of the WCTU's legislative program for 1939 as it related to alcoholic beverages, narcotics, civil service, education, gambling, international relations, motion pictures, social hygiene, and women and children; a budget sheet for the Oregon WCTU's Temperance Education Fund (February 1939); an agenda for the 1940 Oregon WCTU Mid-year Executive Meeting; instructions for conducting surveys of local liquor sale and use; a list of activities to be conducted by the Oregon WCTU Civics Department; a typescript titled "Law Enforcement" providing figures on the impact of alcohol on crime in the United States; and a typescript of a speech titled "The Liquor Problem Up to Date."
This file includes a newsletter from the Oregon WCTU Department of Alcohol Education; a "Plan of Work" for teaching temperance to minors; coloring cards featuring pro-temperance inscriptions; temperance poems; and a handwritten itinerary for a series of children's educational sessions held in May 1939. Also included are lesson outlines for a vacation Bible school alcohol education course, a curriculum for "Narcotics and Youth Today: A Course for Young Peoples Conferences," and a list of activities for celebrating the Frances Willard Centenary.
This file contains numerous publications from the WCTU headquarters in Evanston, Illinois and the WCTU's Signal Press. Included are two cards featuring WCTU slogans; offerings from the WCTU's "Think a Minute" series; more than fifty pamphlets and leaflets including "Alcohol is a Poor Medicine," "Can You Drink and Still Be a Gentleman," "Alcohol and Syphilis," and "Are You Buying Liquor for the Unemployed?"; sheet music for "What the World Needs is Jesus" and "Let the Beauty of Jesus"; and several publications from the Loyal Temperance Legion and the Youth Temperance Council.
This file is comprised of eight press releases published by the WCTU in 1938. Included are releases titled "Beer's Own Record Explodes Proposed Program," "Liquor Floods in Canada--When Will They Recede?", and "Why Do People Drink? A Scientific Study in Every-Day Language." Many of these news releases focus on perceived economic and societal costs brought about by the repeal of Prohibition.
This file is comprised of materials created by organizations other than the WCTU. Included is a program and sheet music from a 1939 performance by Edward Lango and his Spiritual Jubilee Singers; a