Wittenmyer, Annie (Turner, Sarah Ann)
Born: August 26, 1827, in Sandy Springs, Ohio
Died: February 2, 1900, in Sanatoga, Pennsylvania
Vocations: Poet, Public Speaker, Non-fiction Writer
Geographic Connection to Pennsylvania: Sanatoga, Montgomery County

Keywords: Army Nurses Pension Law; Davenport Public Library; Grand Army of the Republic; Ladies’ and Pastors’ Children Union; Orphan’s Home Association; Princeton University; Soldier’s Aid Commission; Women’s Christian Temperance Union of Ohio

Abstract: Annie Turner married William Wittenmyer at age 20 in Ohio. In 1853, she started the first tuition-free school at the corner of Main and Eleventh Streets in Keokuk, Iowa. In 1868, she organized the Ladies’ and Pastor’s Christian Union, and in 1871 she wrote Women’s Work for Jesus. In 1874, she founded the WCTU of Ohio, and shortly after, Women of the Reformation was published. By 1889, she decided to move to Sanatoga after visiting Philadelphia. Here, she was credited with the passage of the Army Nurses Pension Law of August 5, 1892, and Under the Guns was published in 1895. She involved herself with soldiers a great deal, including distribution of supplies, correspondence with societies, and securing papers for men returning home. She also cared greatly about the orphans of soldiers, and she spent a great deal of time finding places for them to live. Wittenmyer lived out the rest of her life in Sanatoga, Pennsylvania.

Biography:

Sarah Ann Turner, called “Annie,” was born on August 26, 1827, in Sandy Springs, Ohio, to John G. Turner and Elizabeth Smith Turner. Her family valued education a great deal, and therefore she was allowed schooling despite being a girl. At age 12, her first poem was published, and by age 20 she had married William Wittenmyer. She took care of a daughter, Sally, from William’s first marriage, and had a son, Charles, with him. Of her four children, only one, Charles Albert, lived past early childhood. William died when Annie was only 33, leaving her with two children to care for. Early in her career she was focused on education. She opened the first tuition-free school in Iowa. Wittenmyer hired a teacher and not only provided a free education to theses children, but also meals and clothes for the needy ones. She also set up Sunday schools, and with her poetry skills, wrote hymns for the children. One of the hymns she wrote is, “A Wonderful Joy.”

At the eruption of the Civil War, Wittenmyer dedicated her life to relief work. As secretary of the Soldiers’ Aid Society, she visited troop encampments and organized a statewide system of local aid societies to promote the collection of hospital supplies. Wittenmyer, perhaps, did more than anyone else to provide care for the sick and wounded in the Union army. General Ulysses Grant, commander of the Union army said, “No soldier on the firing line gave more heroic service than she did.” Wittenmyer realized the poor conditions in which sick soldiers were expected to recover, and she decided to do something about it. Many letters were written to army officials urging them to offer aid and also encouraging the women of Iowa to send food for the wounded. After the problem was recognized, she was put in charge of all hospital kitchens for the Union army. Here, she donated much time and money to getting good food, clothes, and nurses to wounded soldiers. After the war, Wittenmyer knew there was more that needed to be done. She worked around the clock to locate homes for the orphaned children from the war. One orphanage is named after her in Davenport.

In September 1862, Wittenmyer was appointed to the Iowa State Sanitary Commission, the first time a woman was distinctively named in an Iowa legislative document. Now she had the support of the Union government in reporting unsanitary conditions. In 1874, Annie was elected the first president of the National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, an organization devoted to the removal of alcohol from American life. In the five years of her presidency, the WCTU established over a thousand local branches, taught almost five thousand children about temperance, and enrolled over a hundred thousand men in reform clubs. Despite her busy life, she always found time to write. Her book History of the Women’s Temperance Crusade was published in 1878, and Women of the Reformation in 1884. In 1889, Wittenmyer became President of the Women’s Relief Corps, and forced homes to be built for retired nurses and widows and mothers of veterans. In the early 1890s, while bedridden from an injury, she wrote her autobiography entitled Under the Guns.

Wittenmyer died on February 2, 1900, in Sanatoga, Pennsylvania. She was 72-years-old. She died of a cardiac asthma attack.

Works:

• Woman’s Work For Jesus. Philadelphia: J.H. Earle, 1871.
• History of the Woman’s Temperance Crusade. Philadelphia: J. H. Earle, 1878.
• Under the Guns: A Woman’s Reminiscences of the Civil War. Boston: E.B. Stillings & Co, 1895.
• “Answer to Joseph Cook’s Twelve Reasons for Woman’s Temperance Ballot.” The Woman’s Journal 11.25 (1870): 200.

Sources:

• “A Great Work Done: Death of Mrs. Annie Wittenmeyer, the Philanthropist.” Davenport Democrat and Leader 3 (Feb. 1900): 4.
• Leonard, Elizabeth D. Yankee Women: Gender Battles in the Civil War. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1994
• “Mrs. Annie Wittenmyer in the Civil War.” The Woman’s Standard (Sept. 1886): 1, 3.
• Sillanpa, Tom. Annie Wittenmyer, God’s Angel: One of America’s “First” Ladies from Keokuk, Iowa, Historical Biography of a Christian Heroine. Hamilton: Hamilton Press, 1972.
• Students at Pottsgrove Middle School. Home page. 2006. 28 Jan. 2006. <http://www.pgsd.org/annieweb/>.
• Women’s Relief Corps (U.S.). 1827-1897, A Birthday Testimonial, August 27, Mrs. Annie Wittenmyer. N.p.: n.p., 1897.

This biography was prepared by Sarah E. Daniels, Spring 2006.