Woman's Christian Temperance Union

The '''Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU''') is an international temperance organization. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program that "linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far-reaching reform strategies based on applied Christianity." It plays an influential role in the temperance movement. Originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement, the organization supported the Eighteenth Amendment and was also influential in social reform issues that came to prominence in the Progressive Era.

The WCTU was originally organized on December 23, 1873, in Hillsboro, Ohio, and, starting on December 26, Matilda Gilruth Carpenter led a successful campaign to close saloons in Washington Court House, Ohio. WCTU was officially declared at a national convention in Cleveland, Ohio, November 18–20, 1874.

It operated at an international level and in the context of religion and reform, including missionary work and women's suffrage. Two years after its founding, the American WCTU sponsored an international conference at which the International Women's Christian Temperance Union was formed. The World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union was founded in 1883 and became the international arm of the organization, which now has affiliates in Australia, Canada, Netherlands, Finland, India, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, United Kingdom, and the United States, among others.

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union conducts a White Ribbon Recruit (WRR) ceremony, in which babies are dedicated to the cause of temperance through a white ribbon being tied to their wrists, with their adult sponsors pledging to help the child live a life free from alcohol and other drugs. Provided by Wikipedia