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THE
REVIEW OF
COMMUNICATION Recovering Women’s Voices: Temperance
and Women’s Rights
Lisa Shawn StrangeCarol Mattingly.
Well-Tempered Women:
Nineteenth-Century Temperance Rhetoric.
Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998. xv +
177 pages. $34.95 (cloth); $19.95 (paper). In 1874 the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was founded and with the help of Frances Willard became the largest mass movement of women in the nineteenth century. Willard’s relentless devotion to the temperance cause established her reputation as the most prominent female orator of the century. Yet, as Carol Mattingly argues in Well-Tempered Women: Nineteenth-Century Temperance Rhetoric, despite the temperance movement’s unquestionable success at organizing and mobilizing thousands of women, it has received very little scholarly attention. Temperance rhetoric, Mattingly writes, has “been incorrectly dismissed as a conservative representation of the nineteenth century’s cult of true womanhood” (8). Mattingly suggests that historians of the women’s movement often focus on suffrage as the more progressive movement, while ignoring the temperance movement’s far-reaching agenda. In Well-Tempered Women, Mattingly attempts to recover the voices of temperance activists by reconsidering their role in the history of nineteenth-century women’s rights rhetoric. In chapter 1 Mattingly describes how temperance activists adapted their messages to their audiences, often using conciliatory and non-threatening approaches. Mattingly contrasts the pragmatic approach of temperance leaders Frances Willard and Amelia Bloomer with the “harsh” and “unnecessarily accusatory” rhetoric of women’s rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton (27). While this may oversimplify Stanton’s diverse rhetorical practice and uphold the rhetorical virtues of civility and ingratiation, Mattingly effectively describes how temperance activists made their message acceptable to a wide range of audiences. In her speeches to male audiences, Bloomer, in particular, went to great lengths to appear civil and “feminine,” using strategies that bordered on pandering. According to Mattingly, Bloomer often flattered the men in her audience as she pleaded for the rights of battered and abused women and children. Mattingly concludes that these strategies were remarkably effective and “won receptive audiences that more confrontational women’s rights speakers could never hope to attract” (18). At the same time, however, they critiqued patriarchal social structures that inculcated helplessness and passivity in women. In the second chapter, Mattingly examines how temperance activists created a rhetorical history designed to attract new members to the cause and establish a lasting legacy. Focusing specifically on ceremonial addresses delivered at WCTU meetings, Mattingly analyzes how temperance leaders created a sense of community and solidarity. Defining themselves as holy crusaders and divine agents, temperance leaders established their authority and created as sense of moral urgency. Mattingly also notes that by appropriating patriotic and religious appeals, temperance activists transcended the narrow concerns of alcohol abuse and addressed larger issues related to women’s proper role in nineteenth-century society. Chapter 3 analyzes Willard’s efforts to create a rhetorical training program for new members of the WCTU. This chapter provides significant insight into the rhetorical strategies that organizational leaders used to create a “feminine” image that would disarm critics and attract supporters. Examining training manuals and pamphlets that have been overlooked in previous histories, Mattingly demonstrates Willard’s meticulous efforts to establish the WCTU’s reputation as a credible organization. From attention to physical appearance to tips on vocal projection and demeanor, Willard’s manuals covered many of the more superficial concerns of contemporary public speaking texts. Mattingly’s analysis of the manuals show how Willard transformed uneducated and inexperienced female speakers into first-class orators. In chapter 4, Mattingly addresses the racial tensions that plagued the temperance movement throughout its history. Instead of whitewashing the racism of the WCTU, Mattingly analyzes the criticism Willard received from prominent African-American reformers, including Ida B. Wells and Frederick Douglass. Both Wells and Douglass criticized Willard for pandering to southern white women and ignoring the controversy over lynching. Mattingly concludes that Willard’s confrontations with Wells and Douglass actually benefited the organization in the long run by creating a sensitivity to racial issues that was uncommon in the nineteenth century. Chapter 5 analyzes how newspaper stories portrayed temperance leaders. Mattingly argues that the newspaper accounts of temperance activism reflected societal fears and confusion over the changing roles of women. In an attempt to undermine their credibility, newspaper editors often described temperance activists as unfeminine and “unwomanly.” Other accounts focused on temperance leaders’ clothing and appearance while ignoring their message. Mattingly describes how Willard and her followers responded to the criticism by adopting more feminine personae. Although these efforts were not entirely effective, Mattingly concludes that temperance women generally received less hostile coverage than suffragists and other women’s rights activists. Chapters 6 and 7 focus on temperance fiction, which has been ignored in previous histories of the movement. Mattingly argues that temperance fiction reflected a more radical and comprehensive agenda than the WCTU. Mattingly shows how authors explicitly linked temperance to other women’s issues, including suffrage, economic inequalities, marital infidelity, sexuality, and even domestic abuse. Mattingly suggests that the novelistic form allowed authors to challenge women’s unequal status in ways that were much less threatening than a public speech. Novelists such as Louisa May Alcott and Harriet Beecher Stowe were able to influence women in more subtle ways by telling stories with moral lessons. In the conclusion of Well-Tempered Women, Mattingly argues that the temperance movement can serve as a useful model for contemporary feminists. No other movement throughout history was able to appeal so effectively to women across racial, religious, educational, and socio-economic lines. Although many contemporary feminists might question the diversity of the WCTU, the movement was able to mobilize and unite the largest mass movement of women in the nineteenth century. Mattingly concludes that “[s]tudying the use of temperance rhetoric in both speech and fiction should, at the very least, provide hope and inspiration that women can help one another reach a meaningful understanding of their situatedness and that they will prevail if they work together” (177). Although Mattingly’s view of the contemporary relevance of WCTU rhetoric might seem overly optimistic, Well-Tempered Women does shed light on many issues relevant to historical studies of nineteenth-century women’s rights rhetoric. Most importantly, Mattingly recovers some important documents in the history of the temperance movement and demonstrates that the movement’s agenda was much broader than commonly believed. She shows how temperance activists advocated much more than abstinence from alcohol. Their speeches, fiction, pamphlets and speaker’s manuals show a conscious effort to empower women and redefine their subservient role in Victorian society. For temperance activists, as Mattingly explains, alcohol symbolized women’s oppression in all realms of legal, political, and social life.
Well-Tempered Women is
a meticulously researched, clearly written, and persuasive historical
study that challenges the conventional view of the temperance movement
as conservative and parochial. Mattingly demonstrates that temperance
activists were both creative and pragmatic in their rhetorical
strategies, and that their ultimate goal was to revolutionize gender
relations. Her assumption
that rhetorical civility and ingratiation best served the cause may
trouble those who celebrate the rhetoric of resistance, but Mattingly
convincingly makes the case that such tactics best served both the
immediate and long-term goals of the temperance movement. Lisa Shawn Strange is a Lecturer in Speech Communication and Women’s Studies at the Pennsylvania State University.
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