18th and 21st Amendments: "Address of Frances E. Willard"

    18th and 21st Amendments: "Address of Frances E. Willard"

      Willard was the President of the Women's Christian Temperance Union as well as the Women's Council. In the "Address of Frances E. Willard, president of the Woman's National Council of the United States, at its first triennial meeting," she addresses a wide range of issues important to women—everything from equal status in marriage, society, and politics to not having to wear clothing that makes it impossible to walk or breathe: "[…] she is swathed by her skirts, splintered by her stays, bandaged by her tight waist, and pinioned by her sleeves until—alas, that I should live to say it!—a trussed turkey or a spitted goose are her most appropriate emblems" (source).

      Wait, what? We didn't know they had Spanx in the 1890s.

      The speech describes the progress that women have made in the past decades in business and education, and she sings the praises of Wyoming, which granted women the right to vote in 1869. Willard spends a paragraph on supporting Prohibition, but it's really just one step toward a much greater goal. This is a women's movement-building speech. Willard herself would likely have been far more impressed with the 19th Amendment, which granted women the vote, than with the 18th. Although she was a driving force behind both, she didn't live to see either Amendment passed.