The Frances Willard Home, as shown in 1928. Photo courtesy of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Special Collections.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Library’s Special Collections has been awarded a $3,679 Tennessee Historical Records Advisory Board programming regrant through funding made available by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. The grant funds will support an essential project to digitize, describe and publish online the records of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) of Chattanooga.
These records, which span from 1889 to 1980, offer a unique and invaluable perspective on the temperance movement and the evolving role of women in the public sphere during a transformative period in American history.
UTC Manuscripts Archivist Molly Copeland said that Special Collections is dedicated to acquiring, preserving and ensuring equitable access to a diverse array of cultural heritage resources. These collections document the rich history of Chattanooga, the Tennessee Valley and the South—as well as the history of the University.
“The WCTU of Chattanooga was not just a chapter in a national organization; it was a force for social change in the region,” said Copeland, who will serve as the project director. “This grant will allow us to preserve and share these invaluable records, the earliest of which provide insights into how Chattanooga women organized themselves politically and worked to address pressing issues in their community in an era before women’s suffrage.”
Copeland explained that funding from the grant will allow for the hiring of a student assistant to create robust digital object metadata, use a flatbed scanner to digitally capture unedited master images, and deskew and trim derivatives for publication online.
The digitization project, set to begin in January 2025, will involve scanning approximately 167 images, including 48 text-based documents and 11 photographs. These materials will be made freely available online, complete with detailed metadata and transcripts, to ensure they are accessible to researchers, historians and the general public.
Once digitized, the collection will be available through UTC Digital Collections, providing unrestricted access to these significant historical documents. The project is scheduled for completion by July 2025.
The records of the WCTU of Chattanooga—including charters of incorporation, bylaws, meeting minutes and photographs—capture the history of this institution and its role in the lives of thousands of women over nearly a century.
Assistant Head of Collection Services and Director of Special Collections Carolyn Runyon emphasized the broader impact of this project.
“By digitizing and sharing these records, we are not only preserving the history of a crucial women-led organization in Tennessee but also contributing to a deeper understanding of the temperance movement and the social reform efforts that shaped Chattanooga and the South,” Runyon said. “These records offer scholars a rare glimpse into the intersection of gender, politics and social change during a critical era in American history.”
Two images from 1889: signatures from the original Charter of Incorporation, left, and the first page from the handwritten constitution for the WCTU of Chattanooga. Photos courtesy of University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Special Collections.
Founded in 1874, the WCTU was one of the most influential women’s organizations of the 19th century, advocating for a wide range of social reforms. While the organization is most famously associated with the temperance movement—campaigning against the consumption and sale of alcohol—it also played a significant role in the fight for women’s suffrage, labor laws and prison reform.
The Chattanooga chapter was deeply involved in the national temperance movement while also addressing local issues specific to the South and specifically the changing social conditions in Chattanooga—which in the late 19th century was experiencing a boom in population and industry.
The WCTU of Chattanooga records hold particular value as they document the Frances Willard Home, the only boarding house for wage-earning women in the U.S. that was owned and operated by a WCTU chapter. The home, named for Willard—the national WCTU organization’s second president—following her death in 1898, housed over 5,000 young women between 1928 and 1976.
The final location of the home—a historic building located at 615 Lindsay St. in Chattanooga, just two blocks from the UTC campus—was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. This process is documented within the collection.
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