>  (1) do I have my facts right?

David, I think you have  your facts correct.

>(2) why the decline of interest by
>historians in the WCTU in the USA (at least as measured by book publication)?

This question is interesting.  The answer probably has as much to do with
the state of history-writing in the United States as anything else.  The
answer may be because the WCTU women were not "subaltern" and the fashion
came to be, by the 1980s, only to write about the oppressed.  In my work, I
had an occasion to review a syllabus in American women's history about 5
years ago.  From that syllabus, the students would not know that an upper
or middle class woman of European ancestry ever set foot on the soil of
North America!  When I inquired, I was told, "oh, that is not where the
field is at nowadays" or words to that effect!  Scholars my not be much
interested in the WCTU because of the composition of its membership.  I
think there is a lot of ignorance about the WCTU, especially its history
after the death of Frances Willard when, contrary to what I have seen in
print, the organization actually grew.




K. Austin Kerr                   e-mail [log in to unmask]
Professor of History             office (614)292-2613
Ohio State University            department  292-2674
Columbus, Ohio 43210 USA         fax    (614)292-2282