The Keokuk reformer who fed Civil War soldiers, built homes for orphans, and led the national temperance movement.
Based in Keokuk, Iowa, Annie Turner Wittenmyer organized sanitary and relief work for Iowa soldiers during the Civil War, and created the “diet kitchens” that provided proper food for the wounded — a model adopted army-wide.
After the war she helped found homes for soldiers' orphans and, in 1874, became the first national president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).
Wittenmyer's wartime relief work saved lives and shaped later humanitarian nursing, and her reform leadership carried national weight. Iowa named a Davenport complex the Annie Wittenmyer Home in her honor.
She is a major figure in Iowa's history of women's public service.
The Keokuk reformer who fed Civil War soldiers, built homes for orphans, and led the national temperance movement.
Annie Wittenmyer was from Keokuk, Iowa.
1827–1900.
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