WILLARD, Franca Elisabeth, American educator and temperance reformer: b. Church %ille, N. Y., 28 Sept. 1839; d. New York, 18 Feb 1898. She was graduated from the North western Female College, Evanston, Ill., in 1859, engaged in teaching, was appointed professor of esthetics in the Northwestern University in 1860, and became dean of the Women's College of that institution in 1871. In 1814 she re signed this position, was elected secretary of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in that year, and in 1879 she became its president, an office she held until her death. In her management of the association she displayed great executive ability and a remarkable genius for orwaniration. She founded in 1883 the World's Christian Temperance Union, and in 18804 became its president. She declared her self in favor of woman's suffrage in 1876, and thereafter lectured occasionally upon the sub ject, deeming the ballot a protection to women from the miseries caused by drink In 1892 she visited England, where she was the guest of Lady Henry Somerset, the temperance re former, and while there addressed a mass meet ing at Exeter Hall, said to have been one of the assemblages ever held there. She
devoted her life to a cause, and won the ad miration and love of a vast number of people. even those who did not agree with many of her views. In all the long list of reformers who have sought to rid the world of the evils of the liquor traffic there is no name that stands higher than that of Frances E. Willard. In her work Miss Willard displayed an untiring energy, and for 10 years she averaged a meet ing a day, meanwhile continuing Iser literary labors. She was editor of the Chicago Post and Mail for a short time after 1878, and from 1892-98 editor-in-chief of the Union Signal, the official organ of the temperance movement. Her publications include 'Nineteen Beautiful Years' (1868); 'Woman and Temperance' (1883); 'Glimpses of Fifty Years' (18139); 'A Great Mother' (1894), etc. She also edited with Mary A. Livermore, 'A Woman of the Century' (1893).