nl_e17

Ballard, Danger to our Girls, [1900]
Document 21: Anna L. Ballard, Danger to Our Girls (Chicago: Woman's
Temperance Publication Association, [circa 1900]).
Introduction
Age-of-consent campaigns in various states were relatively successful, and by
1900, the legal age of consent had been raised to eighteen in eight states, and in
another fifteen states, the age had been raised to sixteen. Although in California
and in many southern states the battle continued through the first two decades of
the twentieth century, the focus of the purity movement shifted to preventive social
reforms, rather than punitive legal ones.[17] The remaining several documents
illustrate the changes taking place in the purity movement at this time which shifted
the focus of reformers away from the campaign to raise the age of consent and
toward education about sexuality.
The WCTU popularized the preventive reform of mothers' meetings to educate
mothers on how to build character and instill pure values in their children. Although
originally conceived as a way to educate poor women how to teach their daughters
to avoid seduction and remain morally pure, the meetings became dominated by
middle-class women. The belief of organizers of the mothers' meetings that mothers
could collectively purify society through careful rearing of their children gave a new
value and dignity to women's work within the home. The following pamphlet was
published by the WCTU as part of its series of social purity leaflets for mothers'
meetings.
Danger to Our Girls.
__________
L. ANNA BALLARD, M.D.
"The fountain cannot rise higher than its source." The weal of
humanity rests so heavily upon womanhood, and its life depends so
much upon the activities and integrity of woman, that we must guard
well this spring of the life of our race. A pure and bright girlhood, a
strong and noble womanhood, an intelligent and watchful motherhood-these
are conditions that must be kept inviolate or we shall cut
ourselves off from our birthright as "children of the king." Either we
have never risen to our best estate in these conditions or we have
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