{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.030752916224814422, 'fraction_numerical': 0.012725344644750796, 'mean_word_length': 5.396610169491526, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Fiction and feminism: women's voices in the nineteenth-century temperance movement

Founded in 1874, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) attracted over 200,000 members by the beginning of the twentieth century, making it the “largest single organizing force for women in U.S. history” (1). In Water Drops from Women Writers: A Temperance Reader, Carol Mattingly presents a collection of nineteen works of temperance fiction published by some of the leading authors and activists of the nineteenth century. The volume serves as something of a companion work to Mattingly’s earlier book, Well-Tempered Women: Nineteenth-Century Temperance Rhetoric. In her introduction to Water Drops from Women Writers, Mattingly focuses on how novels and short stories helped to define the scope and breadth of the temperance movement. She points out that temperance fiction was largely written about and for women, with women contributing nearly three quarters of all temperance tracts and books (5). Unlike public speaking, fiction was considered an acceptable forum for women, as novels and short stories were generally seen as entertainment, not forms of public advocacy. Yet, as Mattingly points out, women fiction writers addressed a wide array of controversial issues relating to the legal, economic, and social oppression of women, including woman suffrage, domestic abuse, marital rape, and divorce. Temperance authors depicted strong, heroic female protagonists who were not afraid to confront tavern owners, drunken fathers, and alcoholic husbands. They wrote not merely to entertain and amuse, but rather to advance their views on some of the most controversial political and social issues of the Victorian era. Mattingly divides the book into three thematic parts: family relationships, THE REVIEW OF COMMUNICATION 3.1 (January 2003): 4–6  2003 National Communication Association