Tilton, Elizabeth, 1869-1950

Elizabeth (Hewes) Tilton, Unitarian feminist and temperance crusader, was born on March 13, 1869, in Salem, Massachusetts, the daughter of Eleanor Fox (Jewett) and James Tracy Hewes. She attended Radcliffe College in 1887-1888. On January 10, 1911 she married William F. Tilton of Cambridge. She died on March 17, 1950, after a long illness, at her winter home in Winter Park, Florida.

Beginning in 1911 and until failing health curtailed her activities in the mid-'30's, EHT devoted much of her time and energy to the causes of woman suffrage, peace, education, and prohibition. From 1911 to 1913 she and other volunteers of the Boston Associated Charities worked with a group of physicians led by Dr. Charles Putnam and Dr. John W. Elliott on a "poster campaign against alcohol." Until this time advertising had been little used by private organizations. As director of the Unitarian Temperance Society (1913-1914), EHT took part in a survey of various liquor experiments being tried in the United States and Europe; it was at this time that she became firmly committed to the cause of prohibition. Notable among the many positions EHT held were the following: organization chairman of the Massachusetts Woman's Suffrage Association (1916-1918); chairman, Women's Division of the Massachusetts Anti-Saloon League (1917); chairman of the legislation committee of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers (1921-1931); and organizer and chairman of the Women's National Committee for Education Against Alcohol. She was the author of Turning off the Spigot (1914) and Save America (1924); contributed to the Woman's Journal, Current History, and other publications; and was one of Boston's busiest writers of "letters to the editor."

EHT was a hard-hitting protagonist who never hesitated to engage an opponent; she opposed presidential candidate Alfred E. Smith in 1928 largely because of his views on the return of legalized liquor. Though she readily assumed leadership in temperance and other organizations, when Massachusetts religious and temperance leaders urged her to run for the United States Senate in 1930 she refused. Even after illness ended her active participation in the temperance movement, she continued to write letters and articles in favor of prohibition.