Early life Gordon was born on July 21, 1853, in
Boston, Massachusetts, to James M. and Mary Clarkson Gordon, both Christian
abolitionists. Her father had served as Treasurer on the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. When she was three, her family moved to
Auburndale.
Elizabeth Gordon was an older sibling. She went on to attend Boston High School,
Lasell Seminary, and
Mount Holyoke College. She spent a year abroad in
San Sebastián with another sister,
Alice Gulick, who was a missionary and had started a school for girls there in 1871. In 1881, Gordon and Willard went south to organize WCTU chapters where women's political activity received even less support than in the north. Gordon subsequently followed her employer on her travels through the United States, Canada and Europe, spending a year in England, mostly as the guests of
Lady Henry Somerset. In the over-a-decade the two women lived together, Gordon also helped to care for Willard's mother. Some scholars refer to Gordon as Willard's "lifelong companion." Upon Lillian Stevens' death in 1914, Anna Adams Gordon became president of the WCTU until 1925. The WCTU's headquarters was moved to Willard's former home, and Gordon was instrumental in turning several rooms into a museum to Willard. During the
First World War, Gordon was instrumental in convincing
U.S President Woodrow Wilson to harden the federal government's policies against the manufacture of alcoholic beverages, most notably by criminalizing the use of foodstuffs to make alcohol. Later, in 1919, temperance organizations scored a major victory with the ratification of the
Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which fully established
prohibition in the United States. After this success, the WCTU under Gordon's guidance began to turn more towards temperance enforcement, and causes peripheral to the temperance movement, such as
citizenship for immigrants,
women's rights in the workplace, and
child protection. In November 1922, she was elected president of the World Women's Temperance Union (WWCTU), and resigned her presidency of the national WCTU organization. She died on June 15, 1931, in
Castile,
New York. ==Works==