Although she had signed a pledge of abstinence while being an

https://www.nytimes.com/1986/12/14/books/do-everything-she-said.html

She organizes her narrative within well-titled chapters: ''Choices,'' ''Commitment,'' ''Career,'' ''Celebrity,'' ''Reformer,'' ''Christian,'' ''Politician.'' With grace and energy the author portrays a woman who was in command of her life choices. Willard chose not to marry, breaking an engagement to a domineering Methodist minister because she preferred the independence and intimacy of female friendships. (Ten years later, when her former fiance became president of Northwestern University and she was head of its women's college, he forced her out.) Although she had signed a pledge of abstinence as an adolescent, Frances Willard was 35 years old before she self-consciously chose to become a temperance activist and a woman's organizer in 1874, and went on to become a local, statewide and national leader of the W.C.T.U. Rather than contradict prevailing attitudes about ''woman's place,'' Willard presented a continuum to justify the involvement of women in social issues: the protectors of the home needed ''home protection.'' In a similar linkage, Willard argued that religious teaching legitimized rather than limited women's roles.