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Special Collections Research Center
William & Mary Special Collections Research CenterFinding Aid Authors: Benjamin Bromley, Public Services Archives Specialist.
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According to the seller, this material was found in the bottom of a closet in the home of Grace Shipley Collins, a member of the WCTU in Ft. Smith, Arkansas, many years after her death. The seller was her granddaughter.
Woman's Christian Temperance Union (Ft. Smith, Arkansas) Records, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William and Mary
Accessioned and minimally processed by Benjamin Bromley in December 2010. Physically and intellectually arranged by Leigh Soares, SCRC staff, in May 2011.
Further information about this individual or organization may be available in the Special Collections Research Center Wiki:
Minutes, financial ledgers, correspondence, printed material, and religious ephemera, 1882-1960, relating to a chapter of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in Ft. Smith, Arkansas, from the home of Grace Shipley Collins.
A Guide to Women's Studies Resources in the Special Collections Research Center; Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Moira Chapter (Franklin Co., N.Y.) Minute Books (Mss. 2010.102).
Information about related materials is available at http://guides.swem.wm.edu/content.php?pid=87496
The fragile nature of this material may limit handling.
This series contains official organizational records of the Fort Smith, Arkansas, chapter of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Included here are minute books, financial ledgers, and loose meeting minutes and newspaper clippings that seem to have been saved intentionally with the record books. A few of the minute books have missing covers or fragile binding, but the contents are otherwise in good condition.
WCTU printed "President's Circular" (June 1888) tucked into front cover.
Front cover completely missing. Meetings often held twice a month. List of officers and members in the back.
List of officers, members, dues and pledges collected.
Mrs. Yadon is the Recording Secretary until elected president in 1916 when job passes to Mrs. Holland.
At the back of the book are lists of members, dues collected by the group, and families with sons in the war. Newspaper clippings about WCTU meetings or activities are pasted into the book. Also pasted into books are personal notes to the President and the chapter, letters from politicians and printed materials.
A WCTU Treasurer's Book that has been adapted into the Secretary's Book. Basically a scrapbook, with membership rolls and meeting minutes but also newspaper clippings and printed materials pasted into various pages. Includes several loose notes and clippings that have been tucked into the book.
Begins with membership rolls and dues paid, then moves into other expenses and income.
Begins with an extended members section, organized alphabetically by last name, mostly for 1922 and 1923. Then, it details expenses and income A few letters have been tucked into the book, generally about money owed to or from the chapter.
Monies paid and taken in; membership roll in the back.
The correspondence series is divided into two distinct sections. Administrative correspondence includes notes and letters pertaining to the business of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, from details about conventions to legislators' thoughts on various aspects of the temperance campaign. In a different vein, many of the personal letters to the Fort Smith chapter are thank-you notes for the women's acts of kindness and sympathy.
Letters to and from Mrs. F. M. Long, Corresponding Secretary of a local chapter of WCTU, Fort-Smith, Ark. Letters: from Mrs. Emily H. Thompson of Little Rock, asking Mrs. Long to send report about her Union's work on Anti-Narcotics before the Convention and from Jamie Carr Pittman giving instructions about the content of Mrs. Long's report for the state convention, to be held Oct. 24-28 in Jonesboro.
This collection also contains a number of printed materials from the end of the nineteenth century through the middle of the twentieth century. The series includes pamphlets published by the various national departments of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union as well as one handbill announcing a national prohibition rally in Fort Smith. Additionally, one can find here dozens of devotionals written mostly by Mrs. J. R. Collins for the Union's Arkansas White Ribboner in the 1950s.
Among the religious ephemera are Bible verses, business cards supporting the Christian temperance movement, and stickers advertising the Woman's Christian Temperance Union such as "What you see with your eyes and hear with your ears proves that the thing most responsible for sucking money away from useful business, destroying efficiency, filling divorce courts and jails, and smearing highways with human blood, is drink." The series also includes ephemera printed by the Union, such as a card to pledge abstention from alcohol and a "Matchless Book" outlining the dangers of tobacco and marijuana.