Woman of the Century/Letitia Creighton Youmans

2297387Woman of the Century — Letitia Creighton Youmans

YOUMANS, Mrs. Letitia Creighton, temperance reformer, born in Coburg, Ontario, Can., in January, 1827. Her maiden name was Letitia Creighton. She was educated in the Coburg Female Academy and in Burlington Academy, in Hamilton, Ontario. LETITIA CREIGHTON YOUMANS. After graduation, she taught for a short time in a female academy in Picton. In 1850 she became the wife of Arthur Youmans. She became interested in the temperance movement and was soon a successful lecturer. She was superintendent of the juvenile work of the Good Templars of Canada, and served on the editorial staff of the "Temperance Union." She organized the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in Toronto, and was president of the Ontario Temperance Union from 1878 till 1883, when she was elected president of the Dominion Woman's Christian Temperance Union. She was reelected in 1885. She was one of the Canadian delegates to the World's Temperance Congress in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1876. In May, 1882, she visited the British Woman's Temperance Association, in London, and afterward lectured throughout England, Ireland and Scotland. She has delivered many lectures in the cities of the United States. She has traveled and lectured through California, from San Diego and National City to Nevada City. She went by steamer from San Francisco to Victoria, British Columbia,and spent several months in that province, lecturing in every available point. On leaving British Columbia she took the new Canadian Pacific Railroad, then just opened, and went through the Northwest Territories, holding meetings in many towns. She was thus the means of introducing the temperance question in the Northwest Territory. She then lectured in Manitoba, which she had visited before. She at that time formed a Provincial Woman's Christian Temperance Union for Manitoba. Since July, 1888, Mrs. Youmans has been a helpless invalid, confined to her room.