Frances Willard's Pedagogical Ministry
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THE IDEALLY ACTIVE: FRANCES WILLARD’S PEDAGOGICAL MINISTRY By Jane Robson Graham C2008 Submitted to the graduate degree program in English and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas I partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ___________________________ Frank Farmer, Chair ___________________________ Amy J. Devitt ___________________________ J. Carol Mattingly ___________________________ Maryemma Graham ___________________________ Kristine Bruss Date Defended: _____________ ii The Dissertation Committee for Jane Robson Graham certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: THE IDEALLY ACTIVE: FRANCES WILLARD’S PEDAGOGICAL MINISTRY Chairperson, Frank Farmer Amy J. Devitt J. Carol Mattingly Maryemma Graham Kristine Bruss Date Approved: _____________ iii Abstract This dissertation presents the teaching practices of temperance reformer Frances E. Willard. While Willard’s work in temperance reform has been well documented, the pedagogical aspect of her life has not. I argue that Willard’s form of rhetorical pedagogy enacted at two institutions—the Evanston College for Ladies and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union—retained the focus on creating a Christian citizen-orator often presented in histories as diminishing in importance in American educational institutions. Willard was positioned to continue this work despite its wane at the academy. She found that her form of pedagogy, which maintained an equilibrium between intellectual stimulation and ethical behavior, came into conflict with the late-nineteenth century academy’s emphasis on purely intellectual endeavor and professionalization. At the Evanston College for Ladies, which later became the Woman’s College at Northwestern University, Willard began a teaching practice that she later continued at the WCTU, an alternative educational institution. This practice emphasized spiritual guidance, engagement in social issues of the day, and a public voicing of this engagement in school and city newspapers and debates. In both institutions, Willard emphasized the means of delivering this social engagement, encouraging her students to be self-consciously “womanly,” or in accordance with the expectations of middle- class Christianity. I present Willard’s practice using the approach of historical ethnography. This inductive method does not provide a predetermined critical frame for the archival material. Instead, the documents are presented first, followed by conclusions driven by historically contemporaneous observations. Archival material is provided from Willard and her students in each institution—at the College and the Temperance Union—in an effort to create a dialogue of call and response, a voicing from both teacher and taught. I present an in-depth perspective of Willard’s work in two different locations and provide context to these practices through Willard’s speeches, books, journals, private letters, and autobiography. Those taught are presented in the Northwestern school paper, the Tripod, Chicago newspapers, meeting minutes of the school’s literary societies and the Temperance Union, Union worker manuals, autobiographies, tributes to Willard, and private letters. I conclude that Willard’s approach, which emphasizes many of the educational practices of an earlier period, was maintained at the WCTU with great success because it created an intellectual culture ensuring that female rhetoricians would be heard on platform, pulpit and paper. Jane Robson Graham Department of English The University of Kansas December 2008 iv Dedication To My Daughters Emma and Adeline v Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been accomplished without the support of the Robson family. You have all demonstrated the variety of forms that an education can take. To my deceased parents, Jon Robson and Mariann Bach, I thank you for providing me the environment to explore things intellectually and spiritually throughout my life, without judgment. To my stepmother, Suzi Robson, thank you for your lifetime encouragement of pursuing my interests and your emotional support. To my sisters, Peggy and Susie, thank you for playing the role of maternal educators when I was your curious little sis. To my brother, Bruce, thank you for teaching me about good music. I am thankful to my teachers at the University of Kansas who helped bring my long journey to completion. To Professor Amy J. Devitt, thank you for bringing me up to speed on both the contemporary and historical issues in composition and rhetoric. Your questions and comments on both reading and writing made me think harder and learn more. To Maryemma Graham, thank you for demonstrating a constant life joy in both relationships and scholarship. I hope to show such passion in my work. And to Frank Farmer, the teacher who embodies the delicate balance between intellect and compassion I hope to achieve myself. Your thoughtful readings and ideas have been extremely generous. To Carol Mattingly, thank you for introducing me to Frances Willard and the WCTU through your tremendous work on the nineteenth century rhetoricians and educators. I deeply appreciate your scholarship, your generosity, and your enthusiasm. To the generous women of Evanston, Janet Olson and Carolyn DeSwarte Gifford, I thank you. Janet provided considerate guidance through the archives of Northwestern University and remembered me with new information along the way. Carolyn gave her time and shared her scholarship, for which I hold tremendous respect. And to Virginia Beatty, long time volunteer at the Willard Memorial Archives, thank you for your generosity of time and gifts of occasional dinners and lunches. Finally, I must thank my family, long affected by the extended demands of this project. To my greatest teachers, Emma and Addie, thank you for putting up with a very busy mom for lo these many years. I hope that you have learned something about how education works, and that your quest for knowledge is always as strong as it is today. To my husband, Peter—it’s been a long ride but we’re finally getting off, thanks in great part to you. You have been a fantastic father and patient spouse. I will never forget how you’ve helped me in so many ways beyond measure. vi Contents Chapter One Introduction …………………………………………………………………………1 Chapter Two The “Moral Horticulture” and “Mental Acquisition” of Frances Willard…………..29 Chapter Three People Out of Whom Much Was Made: Educating Girls and Young Women in Evanston……………………………………………………………………………96 Chapter Four Extending Woman’s Moral Compass Through the WCTU Radius………………171 Chapter Five Conclusion………………………………………………………………………..239 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………..277 1 Chapter 1: Introduction Dear wonderful Miss Willard! What a faculty she had for touching the right chord when talking seriously to her girls! What a teacher she was and what ideals she impressed upon us! Do you remember the devotional exercises she conducted? It seemed at the time as if her prayers took us to the very gates of heaven. Louise Hart, Student. Woman’s College, Northwestern University, September 22, 1923. Such broad views of life and destiny as she opened to our sight; such high ideals of character as she set before us; such visions of the heights to which we might climb, of the noble deeds we might achieve, and with it all, such a deep and weighty sense of responsibility for the use we made of life with its gifts and opportunities, I have never seen nor felt through the inspiration of anyone else. It was like living upon Alpine heights to be associated with her. Isabella Webb Parks, Student. Woman’s College, Northwestern University, 1898. I would not have you only, or indeed chiefly, concerned with the evolution of your powers for your own sake. If you acquire, let it be that you may dispense; if you achieve, that others may sun themselves in the kind glow of your prosperity. The people who spend all their strength in absorbing are failures and parasites. Frances Willard (Occupations) “Ideals” and “noble deeds,” “responsibility for the use” of life, acquisition for dispensation—these were the gifts of literacy under Frances E. Willard. Celebrated as the most famous woman in America upon her death in 1898, Willard was an American educator, reformer and leader of the national and international Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Willard believed that the best form of teaching was to instruct by precept and example. She used the methods culled from years of teaching to establish educational and reform institutions which encouraged women to become public, political beings. The product of female colleges in Milwaukee and Evanston, Illinois, Willard became the president of the Evanston College for Ladies (ECL) in 1871, where she taught all composition classes. She 2 continued to teach composition and additionally rhetoric when the college merged with Northwestern University. There she became dean of the woman’s college, but she ultimately resigned in 1874 over administrative conflicts. The same year, she joined the woman’s crusade for anti-liquor agitation, and a group of Chicago women asked her to become head of their temperance organization, the Illinois Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Willard was elected secretary of the state temperance society, and the following month, became the corresponding secretary of the national WCTU. In 1877 Willard left the organization over President Annie Wittenmyer’s resistance to woman’s suffrage. At this time, Willard lectured widely on suffrage for a year before becoming the president of the Illinois WCTU in 1878; the following year, she was elected the WCTU national president, and remained so until her death in 1898. Under Willard’s leadership of twenty years, the WCTU grew from a few thousand members to 200,000 by the 1890s. The organization mounted campaigns of public and political pressure; public speaking became Willard’s primary means of support until the organization voted to allot her a salary. She endorsed the idea that in addition to temperance, the WCTU should work for woman suffrage, social purity, and other social reforms. She promoted women’s choice to participate in the public sphere and to become ministers.