Matilda Gilruth Carpenter

Matilda Gilruth Carpenter (1831–1923) was a prominent member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, known for leading the crusade against alcohol sales in Ohio in 1874.

Matilda Gilruth Carpenter
Born	Matilda Gilruth (1831-08-12)August 12, 1831[1]
Died	March 1923 (1923-03-02) (aged 91)
Other names	Mrs. George Carpenter

Carpenter is best remembered as the leader of the Woman's Crusade at Washington Court House, Ohio, during which women prayed in local bars saloons in protest against alcohol use.^[2] The crusade began in 1870,^[3] and Carpenter provided guidance to towns interested in the movement.^[4] On Christmas Day in 1874 Carpenter led the women into saloons and collected pledges from businesses that they would stop the sale of liquor.^[5]: 30

1n 1893, she published The Crusade: Its Origin and Development at Washington Court House and Its Results, a detailed account of the movement,^[6] which was praised by Marshall Jay Williams of the Ohio Supreme Court and others.^[7] Carpenter was also an associate and correspondent of Annie Turner Wittenmyer.^[8][9]

In 1920 prohibition in the United States was enacted, by which time Carpenter was 88 years old and she enthusiastically shared her remembrances of the crusade that she led in 1873.^[10]

Personal life

Carpenter's father, James Gilruth, was the pastor of the Methodist Church in Worthington, Ohio and her mother, Mary (Westlake) Gilruth, was described as "a woman of great intellectual vigor".^[11] In 1852,^[11] Carpenter married George Carpenter, a Presbyterian minister,^[10] and her husband actively supported her position on temperance.^[12] Her son, Willard Bryant Carpenter practiced homeopathy^[13] and was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution.^[14]

References

1. Order of the Founders and Patriots of America. authority of the General Court of the Order. 1940.
2. Tyler, Helen E. (1949). Where prayer and purpose meet : the WCTU story, 1874-1949. Internet Archive. Evanston, Ill. : Signal Press. pp. 14–15.
3. "Women's Crusade launched here and in Hillsboro in 1870". Washington C.H. Record-Herald. 1976-09-18. pp. 15B. Retrieved 2023-10-14.
4. "Article clipped from The Vinton Record". The Vinton Record. 1874-03-19. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-10-14.
5. Anderson, Greta (2015-11-01). Ohio's Remarkable Women: Daughters, Wives, Sisters, and Mothers Who Shaped History. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4930-1675-4.
6. Carpenter, Matilda Gilruth (1893). The crusade: its origin and development at Washington Court House and its results. Columbus, Ohio: W.G. Hubbard & Co.
7. "Deserved Honors". Chillicothe Gazette. 1894-06-15. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-10-14.
8. Blocker, James S. "Annie Wittenmyer and the Women's Crusade". Ohio History Collection. Retrieved 2022-09-29.
9. Shipley Carr, Margaret (2009). "The Temperance Worker as Social Reformer and Ethnographer as Exemplified in the Life and Work of Jessie A. Ackermann". East Tennessee State University.
10. "Crusader Sees J.B. Go". The Kansas City Star. 1920-01-28. p. 11. Retrieved 2023-10-14.
11. Carpenter, Amos B. (Amos Bugbee) (1898). A genealogical history of the Rehoboth branch of the Carpenter family in America, brought down from their English ancestor, John Carpenter, 1303, with many biographical notes of descendants and allied families. Boston Public Library. Amherst, Mass., Carpenter & Morehouse. p. 458.
12. Blocker, Jack S. (1985). "Give to the winds thy fears" : the women's temperance crusade, 1873-1874. Internet Archive. Westport, Conn. : Greenwood. p. 143. ISBN 978-0-313-24556-5.
13. King, William Harvey (1905). History of homeopathy and its institutions in America v. 4. Lewis Publishing Company. pp. 128–129.
14. Revolution, Sons of the American (1902). A National Register of the Society, Sons of the American Revolution. Press of A. H. Kellogg.