Chapter 15 Summary and Analysis

Towards the end of the pioneer period, women increasingly had a voice in governmental affairs and moral and social issues. Temperance was the first issue to unite many women, and as early as 1857, campaigns were waged against liquor sales and saloons. The organization of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1874 provided real impetus for change in Kansas, leading to the election of John St. John in 1878, a prohibitionist who introduced legislation to prohibit the sale of alcohol.

Still, liquor could not be banished from the state, as several local sheriffs looked the other way when it came to liquor, and a loophole in the legislation for pharmacy use of alcohol became abused. Women and the WCTU continued to fight for reform and stricter enforcement. Some became increasingly militant; perhaps most famously, a prohibitionist by the name of Carry Nation...