The speeches made by women who participated in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) provide a vivid picture of how nineteenth-century women used rhetoric to present their dissatisfaction with the law and the lack of rights granted to women at the time.... A valuable contribution to the discipline of [American] literature, in particular to rhetoric and women's studies, the volume is informative and highly recommended for undergraduates and graduate students. An excellent addition to scholarly literature.-Choice ""With rare common sense and a good ear for the written and spoken word, Mattingly shows how temperance women built the nineteenth century's largest reform movement and women's organization, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, by presenting their arguments and themselves in familiar language and dress.... Mattingly rediscovers the rhetorical roots of temperance reform and offers new readings of women's literature and public performance. Highly recommended.""-Library Journal ""I am pleased to have this excellent book-length exploration of the rhetoric of nineteenth-century temperance women to rely on. Given the continuing dearth of such in-depth studies of women's rhetoric, I am confident that other scholars will greet this work as enthusiastically as I have. Particularly noteworthy about the WCTU activists whom Professor Mattingly chronicles is their attention not only to defending women's right to speak but also to providing practical instruction in how to do so.""-Patricia Bizzell, College of the Holy Cross ""This study contributes new voices and perspectives to our histories of women. Mattingly shows that the women of the temperance movement were smart, politically savvy, and reasonable, considering their conditions at the time. Most significantly, she shows how they used their intelligence to solve their problems through social action, using a network of education and organization of an astonishing magnitude.""-Catherine Hobbs, University of Oklahoma
