Sober Women: Concord Woman's Christian Temperance Union
- Emma Leuschner
- Feb 10
- 17 min read
Updated: Apr 26
FORMATION OF THE WOMAN’S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union was borne out of the 1873-1874 Temperance Crusade in Hillsboro, Ohio, as an organized women's group to promote total alcoholic abstinence and a healthy and safe home life for women and families. The Union created a national convention in 1874 in Cleveland, Ohio, and an international convention in 1876. The movement increased throughout the country under the direction of the second national president, Ms. Frances Willard. It expanded to include a more extensive variety of political activism addressing women's suffrage and social justice. The WCTU grew to become the largest women's organization in the world by the end of the 19th century. The WCTU is still in place across the United States and many other countries.
TEMPERANCE IN PENNSYLVANIA
The Pennsylvania WCTU movement grew out of existing Pennsylvania church and temperance networks in the state as early as the 18th century. Quakers at the Chester Meeting promoted temperance ideas in February 1725 by forbidding liquor use at funerals Dr. Benjamin Rush, a Philadelphia physician and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was an influential leader in the early Pennsylvania Temperance movement and published An Enquiry Into the Effects of Spiritous Liquors Upon the Human Body and Their Influence Upon the Happiness of Society in 1784. Rush’s work suggested that liquor had an overall negative effect on the body, causing madness, anger, and numerous physical ailments. The Delaware County Temperance Society was formed in 1835, and the first Local Option law was passed in the 1840s. The Prohibition Party was organized in 1869 with Pennsylvanian Simeon Brewster Chase as a charter organizer and Prohibition Gubernatorial candidate in 1872.The 1873-1874 Temperance Crusade also saw more success in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, than in any Eastern Seaboard city. By April 1874, Philadelphia Crusaders reported the help of 25,000 women who visited 406 saloons and convinced 80 barkeeps to resign.
Allegheny County organized the first Pennsylvania county WCTU in March 1874. The Pennsylvania state WCTU was organized in the winter of 1874 at a convention in Philadelphia.The Pennsylvania WCTU headquarters were located at 220 Pine Street, Harrisburg, PA, which is still extant as a building today.
The Delaware County WCTU was organized in 1883 in Chester, PA, with Mrs. Elizabeth Gregg as the first president. Darby was the second Delaware County Union to organize in June 1885, and Concord was the third union in September 1888. By the end of the 1930s, Delaware County had 19 unions. In the 1937 History of the Pennsylvania Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the Concord Union was expressly noted for its outreach to children through the Loyal Temperance Legion and its prison work at the county jails.
Temperance advocacy and legislation in Pennsylvania proliferated under Governor Gifford Pinchot. Pinchot served as Pennsylvania Governor from 1923-1927 and 1931-1935. He worked closely with the Pennsylvania WCTU and was a trustee on the Pennsylvania Anti-Saloon League. Pinchot was a publicly proclaimed Prohibitionist during his first term as Governor. He often relied on privately raised funds from Pennsylvania WCTU women to support his network of prohibition enforcement in the mid-1920s. Under the leadership of Ella M. George during the mid-1920s, the Pennsylvania branch of the National WCTU saw an increase in membership from 17,000 to 47,000. It became one of the largest WCTU branches in the United States. The Pennsylvania WCTU endorsed Pinchot’s gubernatorial campaigns.
In the year following Prohibition’s end, Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot created the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board in 1933 to “discourage the purchase of alcohol by making it inconvenient and expensive as possible.” Pinchot also gave local municipalities the power to determine the right to sell liquor and for residents to vote on the issues of the sale of retail beer, the existence of beer distributors, and the existence of state liquor stores. The impact of Pennsylvania WCTU unions can be traced to the current sale of alcohol. 675 out of 2,560 townships across Pennsylvania restrict the sale of alcohol as of October 2024. In the southeastern Pennsylvania counties, Chester County has 23 municipalities that limit the sale of alcohol, and Delaware County has 12.
CONCORD WOMAN’S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION: AN OVERVIEW
The official minute book of the Concord Woman’s Christian Temperance Union has not been located and does not exist in the National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union archives. Despite missing this critical document, the Concord organization's members, events, and structure were closely reported in local newspapers from the early 1890s through the early 1940s. It is not clear when and why the Concord WCTU dissolved. In the latter half of the 20th century.
The Concord branch of the Delaware County Woman's Christian Temperance Union was organized on 15 September 1888 at the Dr. Benjamin Leggett House at current day 780 Concord Road, Glen Mills, PA. The Concord branch was the third local union organized in Delaware County after Chester and Darby. Elizabeth Mattson Clark was the first Concord WCTU president, Sarah Shaw Leggett was the first treasurer, and Hannah Pancoast Palmer was the first secretary.
The Concord WCTU met monthly apart from July or August for a summer break. The meetings were held in members’ homes on a volunteer, rotating basis and in public gathering spaces such as St. John’s Episcopal Church and Chapel, Concord Friends Meeting House, Grange Hall, Brandywine Summit Camp Meeting, and the Dante Orphanage. Based on newspaper accounts detailing the location of meetings, a small selection of homes and properties were regularly used for the meetings as opposed to every union member hosting. These meetings often saw a gathering of 15-35 women and were open to guests, the husbands of members, and special lecturers. The agenda of regular meetings involved a group prayer or devotional exercise; singing; updates from department superintendents; bill payment; organization of various direct-action committees; reports from the county or state WCTU conventions; readings of letters, academic journals, WCTU literature, newspapers; and arrangements made for the following meeting. The Concord WCTU regularly held public lectures and an annual public picnic in June or Jul, often held at the Concord Friends Meeting or Grange Hall. Keynote speakers at these lectures and picnics included Christian missionary Christine Isabel Tinling; suffragist Ella Goodsell Gibboney; suffragist and Rhode Island state WCTU president Deborah Knox Livingston; prison reformist Major Howard Leroi Baldensperger; suffragist Mrs. Clementia Hartshorne; Philadelphia physician Dr. Jessie Lyons; gynecologist Dr. Ellen Culver Potter; and educator Dr. Francis Harvey Green to name a few.
The Concord WCTU voted on the executive committee and department superintendent positions once a year, usually in the fall, for the following year. The executive positions included President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer. By the 1910s, the Concord WCTU had multiple vice presidents representing the group's Christian denominations: Hicksite and Orthodox Quaker, Episcopalian, and Methodist.The Concord WCTU had many departments that often aligned with the National WCTU departments. Scientific Temperance Instruction, Mother’s Meeting, Peace and Arbitration, Parlor Meetings, Suffrage, Purity, Colored Work, Flower Mission, Press/Social, Evangelistic Temperance, Sabbath Observance, Mercy, Legislative Work, Soldiers and Sailors, Literature, Medical Temperance, Narcotics, Loyal Temperance League, and Prison Work.
The Concord Union appointed delegates and alternates to county, state, and national WCTU conventions. Often, two delegates were appointed to a convention, and two others were chosen as alternates. County conventions rotated locations among the Delaware County unions, and the Concord WCTU hosted multiple county conventions at the Concord Friends Meeting House, Concordville Hall, St. John’s Church, and Brandywine Summit Camp Meeting.
CONCORD WCTU: TEMPERANCE AND PROHIBITION
Temperance in the form of total abstinence from alcohol was the primary focus of the Concord WCTU. During election cycles, the Concord Union formed special committees that sent letters to citizens in Concord, Birmingham, and Thornbury townships that urged voters to consider a Prohibition ticket and local and state government officials to consider temperance issues in legislation such as the Local Option law. During the early years of the Concord branch WCTU, temperance as a political issue was reflected in the township when Concord resident Mr. Pennock Edwards Sharpless received the national nomination for Congress under the Prohibition ticket during the 1898 election.
The Concord WCTU women strongly advocated for the Local Option campaigns in the early 1900s. The Local Option movement was spearheaded by the Pennsylvania Anti-Saloon League, a state branch of a national temperance organization focused on legislation and lobbying. The Local Option movement advocated for voters to decide whether saloons would be legal in their townships and municipalities. The Concord WCTU sponsored public lectures with Local Option advocates such as Ernest Leroy Green, Ella Goodsell Gibboney, Dr. Isaac Palmer Patch, and Concord Township’s Frank P. Willits that covered Local Option education and advocacy. The Pennsylvania Anti-Saloon League also invited members of the Concord WCTU to appoint delegates to their conventions, which Concord WCTU members attended.
Through the 1910s, the Concord WCTU published in local newspapers the names of Concord residents who signed the liquor licenses of bars and taverns, such as the Concordville Hotel and the Chadds Ford Hotel, to shame the signers publicly.This responsibility was first charged to the then-president, Hannah Pancoast Palmer, but was later designated to a committee to handle regular research and publishing of license signers. The Concord WCTU sent one of their members, Katharine Styer, to a License Court in 1913 to report to the union on petitions and remonstrances against hotels and taverns.
After Prohibition ended nationally in 1933, the Concord WCTU still worked to support temperance issues. Pennsylvania ratified the Local Option law in 1933 under Governor Gifford Pinchot, allowing local municipalities to decide whether they would allow or prohibit alcohol sales. This law is still in effect and is why 675 of 2,560 Pennsylvania municipalities are dry or partially dry as of October 2024. The Concord Union regularly donated money to the Pennsylvania Anti-Saloon League to continue its lobbying efforts. The Concord WCTU also pushed to organize "Allied Drys" among dry counties across the state to create a national political and educational temperance force.
CONCORD WCTU: WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE
Suffrage issues increased in the WCTU under the direction of the National WCTU President Frances E. Willard. Willard served as the second National President of the WCTU from 1879 to 1898. Willard’s radical support of women’s suffrage was tied to the notion that women voters would support Local Option laws and add votes for Prohibition. While this was a strategic way to gain more supporters, Willard wielded her influence as President of the WCTU to expand women’s power in public spaces and out of the confines of the home.
The Concord WCTU had a dedicated Suffrage department led by an appointed superintendent: a duty long held by Mrs. Isabel Gawthrop Shortlidge and later her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Helen Wood Shortlidge. In addition to leading the Suffrage Department of the Concord WCTU, Mrs. Helen Shortlidge became the Suffrage League of Concord president in 1915. Suffrage issues were reported to take up a large part of the meeting minutes in the early 1900s, often with WCTU members reading suffrage literature and lectures at the Concord Union’s monthly meetings. The Concord WCTU mailed letters and suffrage literature to voters in the Concord township district. The Delaware County WCTU pushed local unions to devote attention to the suffrage cause throughout the 1910s. Concord WCTU members attended suffrage rallies, including one in Media, Pennsylvania, in May 1915 where acclaimed suffragist and sexual rights advocate Ms. Rose Livingston presented. Livingston spoke on sexual trafficking and the importance of woman suffrage at this rally during a tour of the Delaware County area. Deborah Knox Livingston, another acclaimed suffragist, visited the Concord WCTU twice to deliver lectures. She addressed the Concord Union in January 1911 at the Concord Friends Meeting House and in September 1915 at Concord WCTU member Elizabeth Brinton Eldridge’s home in September 1915. Deborah Knox Livingston served as the President of the Rhode Island WCTU, chair of Maine’s State Suffrage Campaign Committee, and held positions in the National and World WCTU, Young Women’s Christian Association, Federation of Women’s Clubs, League of Women Voters, and the World League Against Alcoholism.
Even after the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote in August 1920, the Concord WCTU continued encouraging women to register to vote and cast their ballots. The Concord WCTU addressed women’s low voter turnout in meetings during the mid-1920s.
The Concord Union also hosted public lectures about women's suffrage issues. The Concord WCTU invited Mrs. Clementia Rhodes Hartshorne, chairman and founder of the League of Women Voters of Haverford township and renowned Philadelphia suffragette, to speak at the annual Concord WCTU public picnic in June 1921. The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan political organization founded in 1920 to educate women about the political process and encourage women to vote. In 1923, the Concord branch organized a public picnic at the Concord Grange Hall with Dr. Ellen Culver Potter as the keynote speaker. Dr. Potter was a gynecologist, the American Medical Women's Association president, a Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot's cabinet member, and the first woman appointed to a state governor's cabinet in the United States. Other prominent guest speakers arranged by the Concord Union included Mrs. Mary Lachenmeyer, appointed by Governor Pinchot to the State Employees Retirement Board in 1923; Dr. J.M. Tibbitts of the International Reform Federation of Washington; and national director Ruth K. Strawbridge of the Citizen's Union for Good Government, Liberty and Law. These community picnics and lectures were well-attended by members of Concord Township, as reported by local newspapers. Over 200 people in the township attended the fiftieth-anniversary picnic in 1938. The 1930 Census recorded 1,546 people living in Concord Township and 2,076 in the 1940 Census, so an estimated 10% of the township attended the public WCTU picnics and listened to these addresses.
Many Concord WCTU members were involved in separate suffrage groups such as the Concord Woman Suffrage Party, the Suffrage League of Concord, the Thornbury Suffrage Party, and the Delaware County Woman Suffrage Association. Mrs. Bertha Cornog Darlington, Mrs. Lauretta Yerkes Hill, Mrs. Sarah Pyle Cornog, Mrs. Mary Williamson Brinton, Mrs. Helen Wood Shortlidge, Mrs. Jennie H. Patterson, Mrs. Hannah Pancoast Palmer, Mrs. Laura Mattson Paschall, and Mrs. Anna M. Harvey were all Concord WCTU members and members of additional suffrage associations. Of those members, Mrs. Sarah Pyle Cornog served as the Vice-President of the Concord Woman Suffrage Party, Mrs. Jennie H. Patterson served as the President of the Concord Suffrage League, Mrs. Laura Mattson Paschall served as the Vice-President of the Concord Suffrage League, and Mrs. Hannah Pancoast Palmer served as the Secretary of the Concord Suffrage League. The husbands of several members were also involved in women’s suffrage work: Frank P. Willits, the husband of Elizabeth Willits, and Lewis Palmer, the husband of Hannah Pancoast Palmer. Lewis Palmer served as the Treasurer of the Concord Suffrage League, and Francis P. Willits served as an auditor for the Delaware County Woman Suffrage Association.
CONCORD WCTU: PRISON REFORM
As noted in the 1937 History of the Pennsylvania Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, prison reform and outreach were a central tenant and particular strength of the Concord WCTU. Prison reform was one of the first non-temperance issues pursued by the National WCTU. By the 1880s, the women of the National WTCU saw poverty as a root cause for social ills such as alcohol abuse and crime. They directed their temperance outreach efforts to poor, often incarcerated women. WCTU prison reform work originally began as gospel temperance meetings in jailhouses. This quickly grew to include petitioning for rehabilitative reformatories, appointments of police matrons, establishing halfway houses for female offenders, and petitioning for women to be elected to state charities and corrections boards. These efforts led to four police matrons being appointed to Philadelphia station houses by 1885.
The Concord WCTU women held Sunday meetings for incarcerated people at the Broadmeadows Prison Farm, now known as the George W. Hill Correctional Facility, in nearby Thornton, Pennsylvania. Various women from the Concord Union were appointed to hold these services, and by the 1920s, the Concord Union established a Prison Work director to oversee these efforts. The branch also brought lecturers and religious leaders to address the incarcerated people. Out of all of the WCTU branches in Delaware County, prison reform was addressed most by the Concord branch due to their close physical proximity to the Broadmeadows Prison.
Prisoners and public visitors attended the jailhouse services well, with one meeting in March 1915 hosting 150 public visitors. These services centered around religious outreach to the prisoners, and spiritual leaders from varying denominations and churches would address the group. Music was a focal point of these meetings, with WCTU members singing hymns, performing duets, and playing instruments such as the organ or piano. Prisoners later formed musical troupes and performed solos and arrangements with the women of the WCTU at these services.The Flower Mission department of the Concord WCTU would often provide bouquets of locally picked flowers tied together with a white ribbon and a card with religious scripture or temperance slogans and distribute them to the prisoners.
The Concord WCTU also sponsored public lectures about prison reform. At the annual Concord WCTU public picnic on 10 September 1919, the Concord WCTU hosted Major Howard Leroi Baldensperger of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, who spoke on “Penology” and his work with prison reformist and future chairman of the Prison Industries Reorganization Administration, Dr. Louis Robinson. The Concord WCTU brought Major Baldensperger to address the township when Delaware County considered opening a new correctional facility. Baldensperger’s address centered around the idea that 80% of criminality would be eliminated through Prohibition. Baldensperger’s lecture also highlighted the successes of prisoner rehabilitation in Birmingham, Alabama, and Chicago, Illinois, through paid public labor during incarceration instead of physical punishment and older methods of “reform.”
CONCORD WCTU: EDUCATION
The women of the Concord WCTU are recorded visiting the various public schools in the area beginning in December 1898. This tradition likely started much earlier in 1891, as noted in a 1941 article where the Concord WCTU is listed as visiting schools yearly for 50 years. The Department of Scientific Temperance oversaw the township school outreach and education.
Concord Township had five public schoolhouses in the area and several private schools: the Maplewood Institute in Concordville, the Dante Orphanage in Concordville, and Ward Academy in Ward Village. The Concord WCTU visited all five public schools from the onset of their educational outreach, often multiple times a year. These public-school visits consisted of several Concord WCTU members addressing school children on temperance, providing schools with free materials such as framed posters and temperance literature, and subscriptions to publications such as the Physiological Journal and Temperance Educational Quarterly. The Concord WCTU women brought special speakers to address the children during these visits, such as Ms. Grace Bacon of the Chester County Farm Bureau; Professor J. Chauncey Shortlidge; Temple University professor and mental health professional Dr. J. Madison Taylor; Schulman Lee of the Delaware County Tuberculosis Society; Pennsylvania WCTU director of Scientific Temperance Mrs. Ida M. Brown; director of the Pennsylvania Youth Temperance Council Mr. James A.W. Killip; Elizabeth Shirley Maag of the League of Peace and Freedom; and National WCTU organizer Mrs. Emma H. Howland. In addition to the public schools, the Concord Union visited the Dante Orphanage in Concord and the Westtown School in West Chester to preach temperance and healthy living to the students.
The Concord WCTU often held “field trip” meetings for Concord Public Schools in the Concord Friends Meeting House, where children would participate in "health and patriotic drills," temperance subject recitations, and various essay and oration contests to promote healthy living to area children. Concord WCTU-sponsored essay contests were a popular outreach tool, with essay topics consisting of temperance, physiology, and purity, and the winning essayists were awarded medals.
As the township grew, so did the number of children addressed by the Concord WCTU. In 1936, the Concord Union reached over 400 students in the township. The Union women distributed anti-alcohol and anti-narcotic literature to Concord public schools in the 1930s and introduced posters detailing the "Syllabus on Alcohol" to Concord public school classrooms. Frances Willard Day was an observed holiday in Pennsylvania and was celebrated on September 28 in Pennsylvania public schools. Its purpose was to honor and educate on the teachings of Frances Willard and the works of the WCTU. The duty of local WCTU branches was to ensure that schools adhered to this observance. Frances Willard Day is still listed in Purdon's Pennsylvania Statutes and Consolidated Statutes under Title 24 P.S. Education, Chapter 1. Public School Code of 1949 (Refs & Annos), Article XV. Terms and Courses of Study (Refs & Annos), Subarticle (d). Special Instruction and Observances.
In addition to schoolhouse visits, the Concord WCTU ran a Loyal Temperance Legion for older children. Children met monthly, mainly at the home of Concord WCTU member and the longtime Superintendent of LTL, Mrs. Elizabeth Paschall Willits. The children of the Concord LTL picked the wildflowers used for Concord WCTU Flower Mission bouquets, performed temperance songs and plays at lectures and public picnics, and held meetings with elected officers. Guest speakers were brought into the meetings to address the children on temperance issues. At one point, Concord WCTU women discussed the need to organize an LTL for children in the Black area schoolhouses, but it is unclear if such an LTL was organized.
CONCORD WCTU: CHARITY
The Concord WCTU was actively involved in charity work. The Concord Union contributed financially to charities such as the Francis Willard and Lilliam M. Stevens Funds, the Peace and Freedom Movement, the Child Welfare Organization, the National Education Fund, the Concordville Needlework Guild, the American Red Cross, and the Madame Barakat Orphanage.
The Concord WCTU often hosted Madame Layyah Barakat, a Christian missionary from Abieh, Syria (in present-day Lebanon), to speak at public lectures and WCTU meetings. Recorded meetings took place as early as February 1901 and continued through 1915. Barakat founded a Christian orphanage for girls in Lebanon, and the Concord WCTU collected monetary donations to send to the orphanage. The Concord WCTU women also sewed garments for the students at Barakat’s orphanage. Barakat authored several books about her life and regularly lectured on the Christian missionary circuit.
The Concord Union regularly worked with soldiers and injured veterans post-WWI. The women donated knitted goods such as Afghans, quilts, and clothing. The Concord WCTU grew to include a Soldiers and Sailors Department that focused on charitable giving and outreach to veterans and organized visits to military hospitals and rehab facilities for injured veterans.
CONCORD WCTU AND THE CONCORDVILLE NEEDLEWORK GUILD
The Concord WCTU, as an organization, was a member of the local charitable organization known as the Concordville Needlework Guild. The Guild originated in England in 1882 as an organization that helped care for orphaned children in a Welsh mine disaster. The orphaned children needed clothes and linens, and a group of women assembled to sew clothing sets for the orphans. British Socialite Lady Diana Wolverton headed this original group of women and called themselves the Needlework Guild.
The organization spread to Philadelphia in 1885 after Mrs. Alanson Harpence returned from England and spoke of the Guild’s good works to her niece, Mrs. John Wood Stewart. Mrs. Stewart was moved by the spirit of the British charitable organization and subsequently organized the Needlework Guild of Philadelphia with six of her friends. She later traveled throughout the United States, organizing branches of the newly realized “Needlework Guild of America.” The mission of the Guild was to provide new clothing to hospitals, orphanages, and families because older clothing would “pauperize” people in need. The Guild was incorporated in 1896, and it became affiliated with the American Red Cross in 1907 and the General Federation of Women’s Clubs in 1909.
The Concordville branch of the Needlework Guild was formed on 29 October 1894 by Ms. Margaret J. Scott. In the organization’s first year, 149 articles of clothing and linens were distributed to various larger charities and families in need.
The Concordville Needlework Guild held an annual in-person meeting for ingathering, but members regularly met for sewing as often as twice a week. The Concordville Needlework Guild is still an active organization, and members meet to sew or gather new articles of clothing for distribution. As of 2023, the Concordville Guild is one of only 15 remaining Needlework Build branches active in the United States. The national headquarters for the Needlework Guild is in Warminster, Pennsylvania.
The women of the Concord WCTU were all members of the Concordville Needlework Guild because the Concord WCTU, as an organization, was a member of the Guild. In many instances, Concord WCTU monthly meetings ended in group sewing to donate the articles to the Concordville Needlework Guild. The Concord WCTU became a Director of the Concordville Needlework Guild in January 1928. A longtime, 8-year president of the Concord WCTU, Laura Mattson Paschall, became president of the Concordville Needlework Guild in December 1928. Later, longtime Concord WCTU member Edith Taylor Richards became the president of the Concordville Needlework Guild.
Concord WCTU Today
The official minute book of the Concord WCTU is missing. It is unclear when the Concord WCTU disbanded or dissolved, although it is probably around the mid-20th century.
The Ellis Porter Yarnall House near Ward was designated Eligible under Criterion A for the National Register of Historic Places by the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office in late 2023. The Yarnall House was a longtime meeting place for the Concord WCTU during the ownership of the Kelly family, thus making it eligible under Criterion A for its association with the Concord WCTU. I submitted the first National Register nomination draft in January 2024. Stay tuned!
Check out my Special Exhibit at the Concord Township Historical Society on the Concord WCTU!
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