Woman's Prayer Group Meeting in Town Saloon

The 1870’s were abuzz with social change. Women were the centerpiece to this wave of social change. After the Civil War woman’s groups started popping up in large cities and in small towns. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union was the largest woman’s organization of the time and kept that reputation well in to the 1900’s. The WCTU grew out of a movement known as the Temperance Crusades.

Hillsboro Ohio is credited for the birthplace of the Temperance Crusades and home to Eliza J. Thompson. Eliza Jane Trimble Thompson was the daughter of former Ohio Governor, Allen Trimble and wife to a local judge. In December of 1873 Eliza was in attendance during a speech given by Dr. Diocletian Lewis, a prominent Temperance leader, on the destructiveness of alcohol and the pressing issue of saloons in the community. After the lecture Eliza and seventy-five other women organized to march on the saloons in town. Hillsboro had nearly two dozen saloons within the town and Eliza and the ladies were determined to shut them down.

The Temperance Crusaders marched in on saloons praying and singing hymns in hope that the owners would close the doors for good. Mother Thompson as Eliza later became known, and the temperance ladies would pray on dirty floors of saloons and drug stores where liquor was sold, or when denied entrance to the establishment would kneel on snow covered streets as they pushed on for their cause. Mother Thompson and the crusaders claimed victories in Hillsboro and neighboring Washington Court House as they watched as saloon owners poured out alcohol and shut their doors.

These Temperance Crusades spread out throughout Ohio and other parts of the country during the spring and summer months. The Hillsboro Crusades gained notoriety as it made the papers in Cincinnati, Chicago, and New York. Many of the women that took part in the Temperance Crusades later joined the ever growing Woman’s Christian Temperance Union which opened doors for other venues of social change including woman’s suffrage.

The sources used for this blog:

The Ohio Historical Society: www.ohiohistory.org

Ohio History Central: www.ohiohistorycentral.org