Quick Facts
Biography
Jennie Fowler Willing (1834–1916) was an American professor of English and leader in the temperance movement.
Life
Willing was born in 1834 in Burford, Upper Canada. She fell in to a well aged two and had longer term health problems. She had little formal teaching but she still became a young pupil teacher and she went on to teach and write. She wrote several books including From Fifteen to Twenty-five: A Book for Young Men and serials for newspapers. She married a lawyer and Methodist pastor at age nineteen. In 1873 she and her husband became professors at Illinois Wesleyan University She came to notice when she joined the Illinois Woman's State Temperance Union and led it for some years.
She and Emily Huntington Miller were involved with creating and presiding over a Cleveland convention in 1874. The National Woman's Christian Temperance Union was formed at that convention. She was the editor of their journal for a period.
In 1895 she created the New York Evangelistic Training School.
She died a widow in 1916 and left her money to charities.