Wallace - Zerelda G - Montgomery InGenWeb Project

Born: 6 August 1817 (Bourbon County, Kentucky) - married David Wallace 24 December 1836, father of Lew Wallace, author

Died: 19 March 1902

Note: Although I don't think Zerelda ever lived in Montgomery County, she, as Lew Wallace's "step" mother (he loved her dearly as his mother passed when he was but 7 years old, and she raised him) was certainly a prominent name - even influence in our community - she did live in neighboring Fountain County for several years

Image from: wikipedia

Source: Historical Bureau Marker Dedication - Zerelda G. Wallace

Historical Marker Dedication Judy Rippel, 317-232-2537

jrippel@statelib.lib.in.us June 3, 2004

A public dedication ceremony for the Indiana historical marker to commemorate Zerelda G. Wallace will be held on June 13, Noon E.S.T. at the Central Christian Church, 701 North Delaware Street, Indianapolis. The special guest at the dedication will be The Honorable Kathy Davis, Lieutenant Governor of Indiana. Everyone is invited to the dedication to help celebrate the significance of this woman and the honor of receiving a state historical marker. The text on the marker follows: Born August 6, 1817 in Kentucky and came to Indianapolis with her family in the early 1830s. Was a charter member of the Church of Christ (later Central Christian Church) 1833. Married David Wallace (later governor) 1836. Was first president of Woman's Christian Temperance Union in Indiana 1874 and member of the Equal Suffrage Society of Indianapolis. She spoke nationally on temperance and suffrage. On January 21, 1875, she testified before Indiana General Assembly, presenting 21,050 signatures on temperance petitions from 47 counties. On January 23, 1880, she testified before U.S. Senate, Judiciary Committee on woman's right to vote. Died March 19, 1901; buried in Crown Hill Cemetery. Indiana heritage continues to gain attention by the placement of historical markers throughout the state commemorating significant Indiana people, places, and events. The installation of historical markers helps communities present, promote, and preserve their rich history for both citizens and visitors. Via the Internet, that history is reaching a worldwide audience. For decades the Indiana Historical Bureau has administered the Indiana Historical Marker program. These markers have the familiar dark blue background with gold lettering and the outline of Indiana at the top. There are 450 of these markers across the state. For a digital version of this release and further information about this marker, the state Historical Marker Program, and other resources about Indiana, visit the Indiana Historical Bureau Web site at or call 317-232-2535.

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Source: Life in the 1880's Christian Church/Disciples of Christ in 19th Century Indiana Sheryl D. Vanderstel

In 1836 Indiana, the Christian Church was the newest of the Protestant denominations represented among the state's population. In its formative stages throughout the 1830s, this grassroots denomination grew from separate religious traditions and quickly grew into a major Protestant denomination. A liberal theology promoted a Scripture based faith as well as the end of divisive creeds and doctrines. The Christian Church or Disciples of Christ was one of the first "unity" movements found in America. Although most 21st century Christian Church members see themselves as part of Alexander Campbell's reformation movement, there were at least four groups calling themselves Christians in Indiana before Campbell's followers ever brought his message to the state. These groups, along with Campbell's followers, wanted to restore the church to its early form, without denominational name or dogma. They wanted a faith based on Scripture alone. (Conner: 41; Rudolph: 61) New Light Christians, probably the largest of the pre-Campbellite Christian groups, grew from a movement that originated in 1790s New England. Followers of Baptist minister Abner Jones chose to name themselves Christians to stress their non-denominational stance. The Bible was their only doctrine. Meanwhile, in the South, a similar movement began with Methodist circuit rider James O'Kelly who felt that the power of the bishop and the restrictions of the Methodist Doctrine were unchristian. At the beginning of the 19th century, in far-western regions of the country, Presbyterian minister Barton Stone was watching with great interest the revivals of the Second Great Awakening. In 1801 Stone participated in the great Cane Ridge Camp meeting and from that moment on looked to reform the Presbyterian faith by renouncing the doctrine of predestination and turning instead to a doctrine of salvation by repentance. Although Stone did not initiate the New Light Movement in the West, it is with Stone that it is most often associated. The Kentucky minister's views on religion were widely distributed through his newspaper, The Christian Messenger. The newspaper quickly became the mouthpiece for all Christians in the West. During the 1820s Christian groups in Indiana invited Stone to preach and he traveled to the state several times. In 1839, old and nearly deaf, he was honored at the state's first convention of the Christian Church in Indianapolis. (Rudolph: 62) It was this respect and devotion felt by westerners to the gentle and articulate Stone that in many ways facilitated the 1832 merger of the New Lights with the Campbellites. After the first meeting of the two groups at Stone's church in Georgetown, Kentucky in 1823, Stone often quoted Alexander Campbell in the Christian Messenger. Stone saw Alexander Campbell as a David destroying the Goliath of established churches and their doctrines. Campbell's theology grew from that of his father Thomas Campbell who had been a Presbyterian minister in Scotland. Throughout Alexander's childhood, Thomas withdrew more and more from the teachings of the Scots Presbyterians. A brilliant man with an equally gifted son, they immigrated to America and continued teaching and preaching their doctrine of anti-denominationalism. Alexander began publishing a newspaper, the Christian Baptist, in 1823. Each issue preached against creeds, denominations, and especially against revivals and the demonstrative and emotion driven religion found there. Hoosiers were especially receptive to his message; independent Upland Southerners were democratic and strong-willed. Campbell and his anti-denominationalism appealed to many. Clement Nance, a pioneer preacher in early Indiana, preached Campbellite religion in Floyd County and here formed the first of the Christian Churches in Indiana. He predicted there would be an increased following in the new territory. Christian Churches were established in all the counties bordering the Ohio River and Kentucky where Stone's followers lined the southern side of the river. It was one of these river congregations in Madison that brought two great Christian preachers, Love H. Jameson and Beverly Vawter, into the fold. Other great leaders of the faith grew from this New Light movement of the 1810s and 1820s including John O'Kane, the founder of the first Christian congregation in Indianapolis as well as the fundraiser that enabled the opening North Western Christian University. (Rudolph: 62-64; Shaw: 32-33) Also among the early settlers of Indiana were German Baptists, sometimes called Dunkards or Dunkers, and later called Brethren. Emerging from a Pennsylvania German tradition, those who moved west were much influenced by the revivals of the Second Great Awakening and the independent spirit of the western settlers. By the 1820s many of the Brethren were following the teachings of preacher Joseph Hostetler, a disciple of Alexander Campbell. In 1826, he faced disciplinary action by the Brethren for his Campbellite leanings. Hostetler visited every congregation that might be asked to condemn him and convinced each of the righteousness of the Campbellite reformation. Every one of the churches moved to join him. (Rudolph: 64-65) In south central Indiana, Free Will Baptists had formed the Blue River Association in Washington County where a devout trio of brothers John, Peter and Amos Wright preached. By 1819, all three had become dissatisfied with Baptist doctrine and creeds and the infighting those disagreements caused. John especially wanted an association of individual members whose faith was based on Scripture alone. He wanted these believers to be called simply Friends, Disciples or Christians. Through the 1820s the Wrights preached to their followers and John recommended that they unite with the Brethren. This was achieved in 1827. Wright advocated that they also join with the New Lights in the state and in July 1828 a Unity Conference was held near Edinburgh in Bartholomew County. Wright represented the Free Will Baptist group, Hostetler represented the German Baptists and Beverly Vawter, the New Lights. Together they agreed to drop adherence to all creeds and doctrine and to be governed solely by the teaching of what they referred to as the primitive evangelists. The group was so opposed to creeds they did not keep transcript of the conference fearing that it would be seen as a creed or doctrine. They called themselves the Southern Indiana Association. (Rudolph: 65-66; Shaw: 79-82) Another group dissatisfied with the road taken by its parent denomination was already in Indiana long before statehood. The Silver Creek Association of Regular Baptists located in southern Indiana around the New Albany area was the first association of Baptist churches in the state. By 1823 most of the member congregations were struggling with issues of Scripture versus articles of faith and doctrine. Some separated at that time. For others it was the writing of Barton Stone and the teaching of the New Lights especially affected them. Finally in 1836, led by the Absolem and John Littels, another group of Baptists left the church to join the reformers that were coming together under the names of Christians, Disciples, Friends and Brethren. (Cauble: 27-29; Rudolph: 66; Shaw: 54-55) By the 1830s the name of Alexander Campbell was well known throughout the state. His newspaper, now titled the Millennial Harbinger, was widely read among those in the Southern Indiana Association, as well as by other "reformer" groups not yet aligned with any association. Campbell's powerful writings seemed to bring a common voice to all who were opposed to the sectarianism of denominations and the divisiveness of manmade creeds and doctrines. Preachers were delivering whole congregations over to the movement after reading Campbell's essays. By 1839, Campbell agreed, somewhat reluctantly, that the name Christians was acceptable to him, although he personally preferred Disciples. In that year, the Christians of Indiana gathered in Indianapolis for a state convention, the first to be held in the United States. Called by its organizers, this "general co-operation meeting" was held June 7 -11. The meeting identified 115 churches with more that 7,000 members that had aligned with the reformation movement. Soon, evangelizing preachers such as Elijah Goodwin from Mount Vernon were traveling throughout the state calling for cooperation meetings of believers. And so the movement grew in just this way throughout the 1840s. The cooperation plan offered congregations opportunities to meet with others of like mind and to form associations of a few or many churches. (Rudolph: 72-73) Throughout this period of growth for the followers of Campbell, there were more than a dozen Indiana-based periodicals that spread the religious philosophies of the spiritual leaders of the Christians. Some publishers, like Dr. Nathaniel Field, were neither ministers nor theologians, simply devout followers of the Christian message. Others, like James M. Mathes, were pioneer preachers and able promoters of the faith espoused by Campbell and Stone. Mathes, an educated and articulate spokesman, published the Christian Record irregularly for more than forty years, beginning in 1843. As the paper's popularity grew, he asked Elijah Goodwin to assist in the editorial duties. In the pages of the monthly paper, readers found denunciations of doctrine followed by other faiths, reprinted sermons, and even commentary on congregational disputes. A believer in higher education, Mathes was a vocal advocate of Indiana College in Bloomington and North Western Christian University in Indianapolis. Benjamin Franklin was another evangelist turned publisher. After establishing himself as a powerful speaker and ardent follower of the writings of Stone and Campbell, he began publishing his thoughts in a monthly pamphlet, the Reformer. Franklin began writing and printing the paper in Centreville in 1844 and then began publishing the American Christian Review in 1856, a monthly paper that eventually became a weekly. Franklin continued publishing the popular paper until his death 22 years later. (Rudolph: 77-89) In 1848 Elijah Goodwin visited all the Christian Churches in the state to determine the feasibility of establishing a college. Enthusiasm for the venture ran high and the consensus was that the institution should be in Indianapolis, central to all. While traveling to promote the idea of a college Goodwin saw the great need for trained clergy in the state's churches. He also saw the great good that an organized evangelism effort could bring. He proposed a system to receive $1.00 per year from each church member to support such an effort. Adopted at the State Meeting in 1849, the plan formed the Indiana Christian Home Missionary Society as well as the State Bible Society. That same year, the General Convention adopted both plans for use nation wide. True to the independent spirit so instrumental in the formation of the Christian movement, there were those who saw the society as outside the jurisdiction of the faith. These independent minded Christians simply did not support either society. (Rudolph: 73-74) Many of those who took exception to Goodwin's proposals did so because they saw no Scriptural basis for such organizations. Others objected because they felt that such a plan would base undeserved and unchecked power in the State Conventions. These objectors felt that each congregation was responsible for evangelism within their own community. Even John Mathes had grave misgivings and it took much spirited convincing by friends Elijah Goodwin and Benjamin Franklin to bring him to the point of favoring the plan. All of this was reflective of a general distrust of a denominational body or organization. For many, the prevailing philosophy was "thus saith the Lord". If precedent was not present in Scripture then no compliance to any idea was necessary. These congregations had little use for the cooperatives or the State Conventions. The argument as to what the faith should be called continued to rage, though Disciples and Christians were generally the titles of choice. As the century wore on the same independent spirit and Scriptural adherence that began the faith became an obstacle to its expansion. Sadly, in the closing years of the 19th century these divisions would have dire consequences for the Christian fellowship preached by Campbell and Stone. (Rudolph: 74-75) Weekly worship for Christian Disciples was a simple matter. No liturgical form was followed. Worship consisted of sermons and prayers with additional hymn singing. The Lord's Supper was an important part of worship. Baptism followed the guidelines of Christ's own baptism, that of adult immersion. Membership in the faith did not require a conversion experience or any examination. One only had to adhere to the tenet of Christ as Savior and Scriptures as the only doctrine. But even hymn singing during worship caused a problem for some who considered hymns to contain religious doctrine and thus deserving of being excluded from worship. Campbell felt strongly about the use of hymns in worship and sought to override the objections by compiling a book containing hymn texts appropriate to the Scriptural basis of the faith. His work was simply titled Hymn Book. Hoosier singing master Silas W. Leonard, also an elder in the church, compiled a book of texts and music for use in Christian churches entitled the Christian Psalmist. At mid century, Rush County evangelist Knowles Shaw used sermons and songs to bring thousands into the church. He ultimately compiled five hymnbooks. His own compositions, including the gospel hymn "Bringing in the Sheaves," were part of the hymnals. The use of organs in worship also divided the more conservative believers from their fellow Christians. Early in this controversy, Campbell and Mathes were anti-organ proponents but both came to believe the issue was not worth dividing the fellowship. (Conner: 41; Rudolph: 104-105, 92) The first congregation in Indianapolis organized as a Campbellite church was the Church of Christ in Indianapolis. Evangelist John O'Kane organized the church in June of 1833. Among its charter members were Dr. John Sanders and his daughter, Zerelda, later the wife of Gov. David Wallace and step-mother of General Lew Wallace. Lawyer Ovid Butler also was an early member of the church that would later be known as Central Christian. This congregation was the center of Christian activity in the city and in 1866 established a mission in the African American community, which led to the organization of Second Christian Church, known today as Light of the World. (Encyclopedia: 416) Education was of special interest to many followers of the Disciple's fellowship. Many members were interested in education for their children within a Christian environment. Academies operated by Christian church members or ministers sprang up statewide. One such academy, the Wayne County Seminary in Centreville, drew students from around the state, including Lew Wallace, son of the governor. Indianapolis lawyer Ovid Butler was a devout Christian, a rabid abolitionist, and a great proponent of education for all. Through his vision and tireless effort, North Western University was chartered in 1850. The Indianapolis school was built on property northeast of the city, which Butler sold to the college; the school opened its doors in 1855 to both male and female students, the first college in Indiana to do so. The anti-slavery stance of the university became nationally known when the school admitted several students expelled from Alexander Campbell's Bethany College for vocally supporting the abolitionist cause. (Rudolph: 84-84, 92, 102-104; Shaw: 108-110, 139-146) As the faith grew in numbers and spread throughout the country, Campbell continued to be the acknowledged leader, although he never held an official title as such. It was, therefore, to Campbell that most looked for guidance in the political matter of slavery. Trouble began with Campbell's support of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. Northern Christians came to the abolitionist point of view, while southerners became more and more hostile to the North. Although the Christian Church claimed that it was the only church that did not split over the Civil War, the claim was only valid because there was no national church organization to divide. Just as in all other American faiths, the Christians divided sectionally. In Indiana, Disciples members included Ovid Butler, the Wallaces and the Civil War governor Oliver P. Morton, all outspoken abolitionists and Republicans determined to end slavery in the United States. But the ordinary membership included many who were Democrats and the editor and evangelist Benjamin Franklin was a pacifist! Tension rose in the ranks of the membership but open hostilities never took over. Statewide, cooperatives and missionary societies issued statements supporting the war effort and the Union. Christian members went off as soldiers and the doors of the North Western University almost closed for lack of students. At the end of the Civil War, however, Franklin's American Christian Review regained its lost membership and the sectional rift began to heal. (Rudolph: 94, 103; Shaw: 145-192) The close of the Civil War brought more change to the Christians throughout the state, for with the close of the war came the close of the pioneer era of the faith. The deaths of both Campbell and Stone, as well as the advancing age of such state leaders as Goodwin, Franklin and Mathes, ushered in a new era in Indiana. There were new issues to addressed and new faces to lead Christians to the end of the century. From these issues came a deep division that would lead to the division of the faith. (Rudolph: 105) The work of women and young people brought a new vibrancy and vitality to the Christian Church and Hoosier Christians were at the center of the work. Marcia Bassett Goodwin organized the Christian Women's Board of Missions in Indianapolis in 1874. Zerelda Wallace, widow of Gov. David Wallace, led the Women's Christian Temperance movement in the state as well as serving as the organization's national president. The Sunday School movement became especially strong within the church and, in 1872, the Christian Churches statewide claimed 550 Sunday Schools with more than 65,000 scholars. All of these movements served to divide the more conservative element of the faith. These members felt that large organizations were symptomatic of denominationalism. These congregations became increasingly unhappy and the issues became more divisive. Even music and the use of instruments became a flash point issue again. By 1906 the division was complete with the conservative element becoming the Church of Christ and the progressives continuing through the 20th century as the Christian Church/ Disciples of Christ. (Rudolph: 105-106) Bibliography Bodenhammer, David and Robert G. Barrows, eds. Encyclopedia of Indianapolis. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994. Cauble, Commodore Wesley. Disciples of Christ in Indiana. Indianapolis: Meigs Publishing Company, n.d. Conner Prairie. Camp Meeting Training Packet. 1995. Rudolph L.C. Hoosier Faiths.

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Source: Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. Shaw, Henry K. Hoosier Disciples. Indianapolis: Bethany Press, 1966.

Central Christian Church has a rich tradition in downtown Indianapolis and within the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). In 1832 the evangelist John O'Kane organized cottage meetings that would lead to the establishment of the congregation. Still vibrant and progressive today, Central's history is nearly as long as that of the city itself. The Early Years In June 1833, 20 charter members met in the log cabin of Benjamin Roberts in what is today downtown Indianapolis to organize "First Church of Christ". Six years later they built their first meetinghouse, a modest frame structure on Kentucky Avenue, between Capitol and Senate. Early leadership held its members to strict Christian principles. The Board of Elders considered striking individuals from the church rolls for offenses such as inadequately supporting church finances, selling whiskey, failing to pay one's debts, or even attending a Presbyterian church. Men and women were segregated during worship. Christian Chapel replaced the meetinghouse in 1852, and was the city's largest house of worship. Its black walnut pews would accommodate 450 people. The structure boasted a pulpit, gas lighting, furnace heating, and a pipe organ. The redbrick portion of Central's present building was constructed in 1892 when the congregation outgrew Christian Chapel. Influential Membership From its inception, Central attracted movers and shakers on the Indianapolis social scene and in the Christian community. Some early members were Ovid Butler, founder of Butler College (later Butler University) and David Wallace, who became governor of Indiana in 1837. His son Lewis "Lew" Wallace, Civil War general and author of Ben-Hur, also attended Central. Zerelda Sanders, who wed David Wallace, was a leader in the temperance and suffrage movements and a charter member of the church. It was her refusal to partake of alcoholic wine that led to the denomination's subsequent use of grape juice in its communion sacraments. Distinguished Pastorate Central has been blessed with inspired and inspiring ministerial leadership during its history. Love Jameson was called as Central's first "evangelist" in 1842, at a salary of $300 a year. Allan Philputt (1898-1925) and William Shullenberger (1926-1956) each enjoyed tenures of more than 25 years. Barbara Blaisdell became the first woman to serve as senior minister in 1990. And today Linda McCrae continues in a tradition of leading, teaching, and helping the church community listen for God's voice. * Facts from 125 Significant Years: The Story of Central Christian Church. McDaniel Press, Indianapolis, 1958. Copyright © 2004 Central Christian Church.

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Source: Crawfordsville Daily Journal, Sept 24, 1891 The Indianapolis Journal this morning contains a lengthy telegram from Shannon, Illinois which states that Mrs. Zerelda G. Wallace was suddenly taken ill there yesterday delivering a lecture and was sinking rapidly. Her step son, General Lew Wallace, has received no word to this effect, so the report is probably exaggerated greatly.

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Source: Carroll County News Articles Zerelda Williams Womens Christian Temperance Union

Mrs. Zerelda Wallace , the mother of General Lew Wallace , is lying in a critical condition at Shannon , a station near Freeport. She was to deliver a lecture here Tuesday evening. She met the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in the afternoon, delivered an address of two hour’s length. In the evening she went to church feeling in her usual health and had only spoken a few minutes when she said. I shall not be able to pursue this argument further, I am sick.” Before help could reach her she sunk down upon the floor. She was lifted up and laid on the platform while a cot was being prepared upon which she might be removed. It soon came and strong arms placed her on it an bore her to the residence of Doctor J. I. Smith, where she was being entertained during her stay in Shannon. At 3 p.m. Mrs. Wallace was unconscious and sinking. A telegram was sent to her son, General Lew Wallace at Indianapolis. Freeport, Ill., Sept 23-(Special) – (Chicago Daily Telegram September 24, 1891 p.1) Contributed by John Sharp Zerelda Wallace was General Lew Wallace's mother. In her day she was a well known leader and regular featured speaker for the Women's Christian Temperance Union. The WCTU had a very large following in Illinois and particulary in Carroll County. Mrs. Wallace and WCTU were engaged in a struggle to turn the county and the nation dry. Her more famous son, Lew Wallace had attained some fame in the civil war but even more as the author of Ben Hur a Tale of the Christ Ben Hur was published in 1880 and rapidly became one of the most popular novels of the 19th century, my guess is that most houses in Carroll County had a copy of this book. Thanks to Doctor Smith and a hearty constitution Zerelda Wallace, recovered from her illness and lived till 1901. She continued speaking out on temperance and women's suffrage. The Book "Ben Hur" influenced our contributer, John Sharp, to major in History.

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Source: One Woman, One Vote By Marjorie Spruill Wheeler IN 1995

WE COMMEMORATE the passing of seventy-five years since the 1920 ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment which enfranchised American women. It required almost as many years for suffragists to achieve this victory: between 1848, when a resolution calling for woman suffrage was adopted at the Seneca Falls Convention, to 1920, when the federal woman suffrage amendment was finally ratified, several generations of suffragists labored tirelessly for the cause. Many did not live to see its successful conclusion. Origins: 1848- 1869 THE WOMAN SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT, which began in the northeastern United States, developed in the context of ante-bellum reform. Many women including Sarah and Angelina Grimke, Abby Kelley, Lucretia Mott, and Lucy Stone began speaking out for woman's rights when their efforts to participate equally with men in the great reform movements of the day—including antislavery and temperance—were rebuffed. These early feminists demanded a wide range of changes in woman's social, moral, legal, educational, and economic status; the right to vote was not their initial focus. Indeed, those present at the Seneca Falls Convention regarded the resolution demanding the vote as the most extreme of all their demands, and adopted it by a narrow margin at the insistence of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass. After the Civil War, women's rights leaders saw enfranchisement as one of the most important, perhaps the most important of their goals. They were extremely disappointed when the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments did not provide universal suffrage for all Americans, but extended the franchise only to black men. Indeed, the woman's rights movement divided acrimoniously in 1869 largely over the issue of whether or not to support ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. Suffrage Strategies During "The Schism": 1869-1890 Two WOMEN SUFFRAGE ORGANIZATIONS were founded in 1869, with different positions on the Fifteenth Amendment and different ideas about how to best promote woman suffrage. The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) headed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony opposed the Fifteenth Amendment, but called for a Sixteenth Amendment that would enfranchise women. Led exclusively by women, the New York-based NWSA focused upon the enfranchisement of women through federal action, and adopted a more radical tone in promoting a wide variety of feminist reforms in its short-lived journal, The Revolution. The other organization, the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) was led by Lucy Stone with the aid of her husband Henry Blackwell, Mary Livermore, Julia Ward Howe, Henry Ward Beecher, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Thomas Wentworth Higginson and others; it endorsed the Fifteenth Amendment while working for woman suffrage as well. While supporting a federal amendment for female enfranchisement, this organization concentrated on developing grassroots support for woman suffrage by forming state-level organizations; and, working through its organ, The Woman’s Journal, the AWSA tried to make woman suffrage and other feminist reforms seem less radical and consistent with widely-shared American values. In the 1870's, disheartened by the response to the proposed federal amendment, suffragists also tried other approaches to winning the vote. These included the use of the courts to challenge their exclusion from voting on the grounds that, as citizens, they could not be deprived of their rights as protected by the Constitution. Victoria Woodhull, a beautiful, radical, and iconoclastic figure who briefly gained the support of Stanton and Anthony in the 1870s (before her scandalous personal life and advocacy of free love were revealed at great cost to the movement), made this argument before Congress in 1871. In 1872, Susan B. Anthony attempted to vote, hoping to be arrested and to have the opportunity to test this strategy in the courts; she was arrested and indicted for "knowingly, wrongfully and unlawfully vot[ing] for a representative to the Congress of the United States." Found guilty and fined, she insisted she would never pay a dollar of it. Virginia Minor, a suffrage leader in St. Louis, succeeded in getting the issue before the United States Supreme Court, but in 1875 the Court ruled unanimously that citizenship did not automatically confer the right to vote and that the issue of female enfranchisement should be decided within the states. The West Pioneers in Woman Suffrage EVEN AS THE NWSA AND THE AWSA competed for support and tried several strategies for winning female enfranchisement to no avail, woman suffrage was making headway in the West. Indeed, while most eastern politicians were dead set against woman suffrage, politicians and voters in several western states enfranchised women and, at times, battled Congress for the right to do so. In 1869 Wyoming led the nation in the adoption of woman suffrage while still a territory; in 1890, when it appeared that Congress would not approve its application for statehood as long as the state allowed woman suffrage, the legislature declared "we will remain out of the Union a hundred years rather than come in without the women." Even the Mormon stronghold of Utah enacted woman suffrage as a territory in 1870 and came into the union with woman suffrage in 1896. Colorado (1893) and Idaho (1896) were the other "pioneering" suffrage states. Historians differ as to the reason the West was so precocious in its adoption of the woman suffrage. One theory was that frontier conditions undermined traditional gender roles and that women, having proven their ability to conquer difficult conditions and do "men's work," were rewarded with the vote. Another theory was that the politicians hoped that women voters would help to "civilize" the West. Most historians stress practical politics as opposed to advanced ideology as the explanation, arguing that western politicians found it expedient to enfranchise women for a variety of reasons. In Utah, for example, Mormons hoped that the votes of women would help tip the balance of power in their favor in their ongoing power struggle with the non-Mormon population, consisting largely of miners, railroad construction workers, cowboys, and prospectors, who tended not to have women with them. For whatever reasons, these four western states were the only states to adopt woman suffrage in the nineteenth century. The next round of state victories did not come until 1910, and these were also in the West (Washington, 1910; California, 1911; Oregon, 1912; Kansas, 1912; and Arizona, 1912). Woman Suffrage and Temperance MEANWHILE, THE SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT WON a valuable ally when Frances Willard, as president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, led thousands of otherwise quite traditional women to endorse woman suffrage as a way of protecting the home, women and children. Following its official endorsement in 1880, the WCTU created a Department of Franchise under Zerelda Wallace and Dr. Anna Howard Shaw (later president of the NAWSA) which encouraged state WCTU chapters to endorse suffrage and distributed suffrage literature. Though Willard was a member of the AWSA and invited Anthony to speak before the WCTU, the temperance organization's work for woman suffrage was particularly valuable in creating support for suffrage among women who might have considered the existing suffrage organizations and their leaders eccentric or radical. The WCTU endorsement, however, gained for the suffrage movement a powerful opponent when the liquor industry concluded that woman suffrage was a threat to be stopped at all costs. Indeed, NAWSA President Carrie Chapman Catt later referred to the liquor industry as "the Invisible Enemy" and believed that its corrupt manipulation of American politics long delayed the coming of woman suffrage. Unity Restored Through the NAWSA: 1890 ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT turning points in the history of the woman suffrage movement came in 1890 as the two national suffrage organizations reunited in one major organization. At the instigation of younger suffragists, the movement's aging pioneers put aside their differences sufficiently to merge their rival organizations into the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Elizabeth Cady Stanton was elected President; Lucy Stone, head of the Executive Committee; and Susan B. Anthony, Vice President; but it was Anthony who actually took command of the new organization. (She became president officially in 1892 and remained in office until 1900). While continuing to demand a federal amendment, NAWSA leaders concluded that they must first build support within the states, winning enough state suffrage amendments that Congress would approve a federal amendment and three-fourths of the states would be sure to ratify. Though Stanton continued to address a wide range of feminist issues, many of them quite radical (including her indictment of Christianity in her 1895 The Woman’s Bible), most NAWSA leaders including Anthony thought it imperative that the movement focus almost exclusively on winning the vote. In keeping with the new approach and influenced by the conservatism of new recruits, the suffragists went to great lengths to avoid association with radical causes. Woman Suffrage and the Race Issue THIS NEW APPROACH included shedding the traditional association of women's rights with the rights of blacks. Indeed, though the NAWSA never stopped using natural rights arguments for woman suffrage, white suffragists—still indignant that black men were enfranchised ahead of them and angry at the ease with which immigrant men were enfranchised—drifted away from insistence upon universal suffrage and increasingly employed racist and nativist rhetoric and tactics. The new NAWSA strategy included building support in the South. There the historic connection between the woman's movement and antislavery made suffrage anathema to the white conservatives who once again controlled the region and made advocacy of woman suffrage quite difficult for the influential white women the NAWSA wished to recruit. In the 1890s, however, with Laura Clay of Kentucky as intermediary, NAWSA leaders went to great lengths to, in Clay's words, "bring in the South." Using a strategy first suggested by Henry Blackwell, northern and southern leaders began to argue that woman suffrage—far from endangering white supremacy in the South—could be a means of restoring it. Indeed, they suggested, the adoption of woman suffrage with educational or property qualifications that would disqualify most black women, would allow the South to restore white supremacy in politics without "having to" disfranchise black men and risk Congressional repercussions. The NAWSA spent considerable time and resources developing this "southern strategy," sending Catt and Anthony on speaking tours through the region, and holding the 1895 NAWSA convention in Atlanta; at the insistence of their southern hosts they even asked their aging hero Frederick Douglass—who was an honored participant in women's rights conventions elsewhere in the nation—to stay away. By 1903, however, it was clear that this southern strategy had failed; the region's politicians refused (in the words of one Mississippi politician) to "cower behind petticoats" and "use lovely women" to maintain white supremacy—and found other means to do so that did not involve the "destruction" of woman's traditional role. Despite the fact that white suffragists largely turned their backs on them in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and, in the South, excluded them totally from white suffrage organizations, a growing number of black women actively supported woman suffrage during this period Following a path blazed by former slave Sojourner Truth and free blacks Harriet Forten Purvis and Margaretta Forten who spoke at ante-bellum women's rights conventions, and Massachusetts reformers Caroline Remond Putman and Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin who were active in the AWSA in the 1870s, black women persevered in their advocacy of woman suffrage even in these difficult times. Prominent African American suffragists included Ida Wells-Barnett of Chicago, famous as a leading crusader against lynching; Mary Church Terrell, educator and first president of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) and Adella Hunt Logan, Tuskegee faculty member, who, in articles in The Crisis, insisted that if white women needed the vote to protect their rights, then black women—victims of racism as well as sexism—needed the ballot even more. Rebuilding: 1896- 1910 NEVERTHELESS, WHITE SUFFRAGE LEADERS, who either shared the nativism or racism endemic to turn-of-the-century America or were convinced they must cater to it in order to succeed, continued in their attempts to shed the movement's radical image and enlarge their constituency. From the late 1890s to around 1910, in a period historians once described as "the doldrums" of the woman suffrage movement, the NAWSA went through a major period of rebuilding—in regard to membership as well as image. Under the leadership of Carrie Chapman Catt, president from 1900 to 1904, the NAWSA began successful efforts to recruit large members of socially prominent and politically influential women (the "society plan") and to convince the growing numbers of middle and upper-class women involved in women's clubs that woman suffrage would be a boon to their civic improvement efforts. They also reached out to the new generation of college-educated women, many of them professionals, reminding them that their opportunities were owed to the pioneers of the woman's movement, and challenging them to take up the torch. The movement profited greatly from the new ideas and energy of younger leaders such as Maud Wood Park and Inez Haynes Irwin who formed the College Equal Suffrage League, and Mary Hutcheson Page of Massachusetts and Harriot Stanton Blatch (the daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton) of New York, who reinvigorated the suffrage movements in their states by introducing new tactics borrowed from English suffragists including open-air meetings and parades. Blatch also organized the Equality League of Self Supporting Women (1907), later called the Women's Political Union. The NAWSA also expanded its educational efforts, distributing literature to schools and libraries, sponsoring debates, disseminating a new and less radical image of their movement's own history in which Anthony was virtually canonized. But particularly after Catt resigned in 1904 (owing to the illness of her husband) and Dr. Anna Howard Shaw inherited the presidency of the NAWSA, the de-centralized NAWSA provided little in the way of a national political strategy. Between 1896 and 1910, no new states were won for woman suffrage; only six state campaigns were attempted and all of them failed. The Suffrage Movement and Progressivism THERE WAS, HOWEVER, considerable grounds for optimism in 1910. The Progressive Movement, which began around 1900 at the grassroots level and swept both national political parties, was proving to be a tremendous boon to the cause of woman suffrage. In all sections of the United States, men and women who supported Progressive reforms (including pure food and drug legislation, protection for workers, an end to child labor, and legislation to curb political corruption) believed that women's votes would help secure such reforms. Countless women, many of them involved in civic improvement clubs, enlisted in the suffrage movement as they became frustrated at their inability to secure such reforms through "indirect influence" or lobbying alone. Middle-class reformers such as Jane Addams, founder of the famous settlement house, Hull House, in Chicago and Florence Kelley, Executive Secretary of the National Consumer's League, were strong supporters of woman suffrage. And labor leaders including Rose Schneiderman, labor organizer and speaker with the Women's Trade Union League, and Agnes Nestor, President of the International Glove Workers Union, worked hard for suffrage as a means of achieving improved conditions for workers. Many working-class women joined the movement, welcomed by middle-class leaders such as Harriot Stanton Blatch who had objected to the NAWSA's "society plan" and who worked to unite women of all classes into a revitalized suffrage movement. As opponents were quick to point out, many socialists supported woman suffrage, though some socialists who were more radical in approach including Emma Goldman thought it foolish to expect that much progress would come from female enfranchisement. As in the case of temperance and suffrage, however, the idea that women would support Progressive reforms provoked opposition: industries that stood to lose from Progressive reform, such as the cotton textile industry of the South, joined the liquor industry as formidable opponents of woman suffrage, and worked together with the growing number of antisuffrage organizations to oppose state suffrage referenda. Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party AROUND 1912, the increased support for suffrage resulting from the Progressive movement, and the series of victories in the western states seemed to breathe new life into suffragists all over America. The return of Alice Paul from England, where she was inspired by the energy and boldness of the "militant" British suffragists, was also a major factor in the new suffrage activism. Paul and other suffragists had no patience with the slow, state-by-state plodding that had consumed the NAWSA's energies since the 1890's, and demanded that the organization focus its attention almost exclusively upon the federal amendment. Though this infuriated a minority of southern suffragists who were states' rights activists and supported female enfranchisement by state action only, the NAWSA did indeed renew its campaign for a federal amendment—but not before it parted company with Paul and her followers. The central issue in this new rift in the suffrage forces was Paul's advocacy of a strategy derived from the British suffragists, to oppose the "party-in-power" until it adopted woman suffrage, a strategy that violated the NAWSA's long-standing policy of non-partisanship. Forming their own organization, soon known as the National Woman's Party (NWP), Paul and her supporters continued to pursue a federal amendment using bold new tactics, many of them directed at forcing President Wilson to endorse the federal amendment. These actions ranged from mobilizing women voters in western states against Wilson's re-election in 1916 to burning his war-time speeches in praise of democracy publicly in front of the White House. Carrie Chapman Catt and the "Winning Plan" CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT WAS ALSO EAGER for the NAWSA to bring the long struggle to a conclusion with the adoption of the federal suffrage amendment. Her return to the NAWSA presidency in late 1915 and the adoption shortly thereafter of her "Winning Plan" harnessed the power of the massive but sluggish NAWSA and initiated the final victorious suffrage drive. Catt insisted that further state work was vital, but made it clear that the federal amendment was still the ultimate goal. Her plan called for suffragists in states which had not adopted woman suffrage—and where a victory seemed possible—to launch campaigns at once. In states where defeat was likely, she insisted that suffragists avoid such an embarrassment to the cause and seek only partial suffrage—municipal, presidential, or primary suffrage—as they thought best. She urged suffragists in states where women already voted to pressure their national representatives to support the federal amendment. Meanwhile Catt and her lieutenants, Maud Wood Park and Helen Gardner, worked hard to convince President Wilson to support woman suffrage by federal as well as state means, and conducted a massive lobbying effort to enlist congressional support. And when the United States entered World War I, Catt put aside her own pacifism and urged suffragists to support the war effort—a policy which enhanced the patriotic image of the movement with the public and powerful decision makers, including Wilson. A growing number of state victories and Woodrow Wilson's conversion (he began working for the federal amendment in 1918) eventually led Congress to approve the Nineteenth Amendment and to submit it to the states in June 1919. Historians debate the relative contributions of Catt and the NAWSA vs. Paul and the NWP to the victory in Congress. But clearly Catt's careful coordination of suffragists all over the nation and skillful political maneuvering, together with the pressure on Wilson and members of Congress that Paul and her followers applied by less orthodox methods of persuasion, were all major factors. The Fight for Ratification THE FINAL CHAPTER in the suffrage story was still ahead: thirty-six states had to ratify the amendment before it could become law. As the struggle over ratification began, Illinois and Wisconsin competed for the honor of the being the first to ratify, while Georgia and Alabama scrambled to be the first to pass a "rejection resolution." Most states took longer to act, and many battles were hard fought, with suffragists and antisuffragists using all powers of persuasion at their command. By the summer of 1920, suffragists were dismayed to find that while only one more state was needed, no further legislative sessions were scheduled before the November 1920 election. Desperate, suffragists began pleading for special sessions. President Wilson was finally able to pressure the reluctant governor of Tennessee into calling such a session. Thus the final battle over woman suffrage took place in Nashville, Tennessee in the long, hot summer of 1920. In that final, dramatic contest, antisuffragists as well as suffragists from all over the nation descended upon the state in a bitter struggle over ideology and influence. Despite the glare of national publicity, the suffragists watched with dismay as a comfortable margin in favor of ratification gradually disappeared, and they were quite uncertain of the result when the vote took place. When, on August 18, it appeared that Tennessee had ratified—the result of one twenty-four-year-old legislator from the mountains (Harry Burn) changing his vote at the insistence of his elderly mother—the antis still managed to delay official ratification through parliamentary tricks. While antisuffrage legislators fled the state to avoid a quorum, their associates held massive antisuffrage rallies and otherwise attempted to convince pro-suffrage legislators to oppose ratification. Finally, Tennessee reaffirmed its vote for ratification, and the Nineteenth Amendment was officially added to the United States Constitution on August 26, 1920.

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Source: Dunn, Jacob Piatt. Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood. Chicago: American Historical Society, 1919, p. 1059 (temperance)

-- the work was genuine martyrdom to many of the women who engaged in it from a sense of duty, and it took so much of their time that it involved the neglect of domestic duties. Nevertheless they stuck to it until the Baxter law was repealed. Their last action was waiting on the legislature, 100 strong, headed by Mrs. Zerelda Wallace, and appealing to that body to let the Baxter Law Stand. One of the memorable effects of the Crusade was brining numerous women into public prominence as speakers and none of these was more notable than Mrs. Wallace.

She was the eldest of the 5 daughters of Dr. John H. SANDERS a Virginiaian. Her mother, Poly Gray was from SC but was also a desc. of a VA family, the Singletons. The young couple came west and located at Millersburg, Bournbon County, Kentuckywhere Zerelda was born Aug 6, 1817. In 1829, Dr. Sanders removed to Indianaplis where he became a leading physician. He built the brick residence that stood on the ground now occupied by the Traction & Terminal Station which was later purchased by the State as a residence for the Governors.

From childhood Zerelda was an omnivorous reader and from reading medical works and assocation with her father attained a fair acquaintance with medical science. On Dec 26, 1836, age 19, she became the 2nd wife of Lt. Gov David Wallace. Her sisters became Mrs. John h. McRae, Mrs. Robert D. Duncan, Mrs. David S. Beatty and the youngest the w/o Dr. Richard J. Gatling, the inventor of the Gatling gun. Mrs. Wallace was a thoroughly domestic woman and exemplary in her devotion to her family, as testified to by her stepson, Gen. lew Wallce, who is said to have drawn his character of the mother of Ben Hur from her. She joined in the labors of her husband as counselor and critic and devoted herself to the education of his children. She took no public action until the Women's Crusade and then at the solicitation of a friend, undertook to speak in public, with fear and termbling. But she was soon at east and her first effort was a success. She was made the 1st pres of Women's Chiristian Temperance Uion of Indiana, and was recognized everywhere as the foremost woman speaker of the State. She was logical and convincing. One of her addresses was long remembered. It was on The Moral Responsibility of the Liquor Seller and she based it on Exodus XXI, 28-9. "If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die; then the ox shall be surely stoned, as his flesh shall not be eaten but the owner of the ox shall be quit. But if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not ekpt him in but that he hath killed a man or woman; the ox shall be stone and the owner shall be put to death." in 1875 she headed a body of 100 women who went to the legislature to urge against the repeal of the Baxter law, and she addressed the legislators, many of whom showed an open contempt for her speech while it was delivered. At its close, a senator from Marion Co. arose and said that legislative vote was not a matter of individual conviction but of representing constituents and his constituents wanted the law repealed. T he thought flashe dinto Mrs. Wallace's mind why was not she one of his constituents whose desires were considered and as she left she thanked him, and told him he had made her a woman's suffragist. Thereafter she was an active advocate of woman's suffrate as well as temperance. ..

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Source: Crawfordsville Daily Journal, Sept 24, 1891 The Indianapolis Journal this morning contains a lengthy telegram from Shannon, Illinois which states that Mrs. Zerelda G. Wallace was suddenly taken ill there yesterday delivering a lecture and was sinking rapidly. Her step son, General Lew Wallace, has received no word to this effect, so the report is probably exaggerated greatly.

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Source: Crawfordsville Weekly Journal Friday, 22 March 1901