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Part Taken by Women in American History

were too ill to recover on coarse army fare. But after the war she turned to temperance work with the same courage and zeal that kept her coolly working even while under fire during the war. She was the first president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, in Iowa, and beginning without a dollar in the treasury she won the influence of the churches and the support of the leading people until her efforts were crowned with success. She established the Christian Women, in Philadelphia, and was editor for eleven years. She also contributed lectures, articles in periodicals, and a numerous collection of hymns to the cause of temperance.

Mrs. Mary Brayton Woodbridge was one of the most prominent women in the Ohio temperance movement. She joined the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and filled many important offices in that organization. She was the first president of the local union in her own home town, Ravenna, then for years president of her state union, and in 1878 she was chosen recording secretary of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, a position which she filled with marked ability. Upon the resignation of Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, in the St. Louis National Woman's Christian Temperance Union Convention, in October, 1884, Mrs. Woodbridge was unanimously elected national superintendent of the department of legislation and petition. Her crowning work was done in conducting a constitutional amendment campaign. She edited the Amendment Herald, which gained a weekly circulation of a hundred thousand copies. From 1878, she was annually reelected recording secretary of the national union. She was secretary of the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union and in 1889 attended the world's convention in England. She died in Chicago, Illinois, October 25, 1894.

Mrs. Caroline M. Clark Woodward entered the field of temperance in 1882 as a temperance writer and she proved herself a consistent and useful worker for the cause. In 1884 she was elected treasurer of the Nebraska Woman's Christian Temperance Union and in 1887, vice-president at large of the state. In 1887 she was appointed organizer for the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union and was twice reappointed. In the Atlanta convention she was elected associate superintendent of the department of work among railroad employees. She was a member of each national convention of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, including the memorable St. Louis convention of 1884. She was a delegate to the national prohibition party convention in 1888, held in Indianapolis and as a final and well-earned honor she was nominated by that party for regent of the state university of Nebraska and led the state ticket by a large vote.

The roll call of temperance workers in America further includes: Mrs. Mary L. Doe; Mrs. Martha M. Frazier; Mrs. Elizabeth P. Gordon; Mrs. Clara Cleghorn Hoffman; Mrs. Eliza B. Ingalls; Mrs. Lide Meriweather, well known for her work to obtain constitutional prohibition in Tennessee; Mrs. Ann Viola Neblett, indefatigable worker for temperance in Greenville, South Carolina, and the first woman in her state to declare herself for woman suffrage over her own signature in public print, which was an act of heroism and might have meant social ostracism in the conservative South; Mrs. Sarah Mariah Clinton Perkins, Mrs. Laura Jacinta Rittenhouse, of Illinois; Miss Mary Scott, an earnest advocate in Canada, whose writings on temperance have had wide circulation among our Woman's Christian