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Jessie Ackerman, 'The Original World Citizen': Temperance Leader, Suffrage Pioneer, Feminist, Humanitarian., Jenny Rushing

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Jessie Ackerman was the second world missionary for the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Her fascinating life sheds light on the most important issues facing women during this time period. Most WCTU women have been dismissed by twentieth century scholars as being religiously fanatical and conservative. They have been overshadowed by suffragists and other women that we consider more radical by today’s standards. Only in recent years have some feminist historians begun to reexamine the contributions WCTU women made to the suffrage movement and to feminism.

The research for this thesis relies heavily on primary sources including Ackerman’s personal papers found …