The History of the WCTU
(Time line available in the News
In many towns in Ohio and New York in the fall of 1873 women concerned about the destructive power of alcohol met in churches to pray and then
marched to the saloons to ask the owners to close their establishments. They met with success but it was only temporary so by the next summer the women concluded that they must become
organized nationally. This led to the founding of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union - the oldest continuing non-sectarian woman's organization in the world.