Ella Alexander Boole, M.A

Mrs. Ella Alexander Boole, M.A., was born July 26, 1858, in Van Wert, Ohio.  Her father, Col. I.N. Alexander, was in command of the 46th Regiment, Ohio Volunteers, during Sherman's famous "March to the Sea," and served in the army during the entire war.  Mrs. Boole graduated from Wooster University, Ohio, carrying off the chief prize and highest honors from the large class of lady and gentleman graduates.  After her graduation she taught for five years as professor of languages and higher mathematics in the high school of Van Wert County, Ohio, refusing several urgent offers of professorships in some of the first colleges of the West.  In 1884, she was married to Rev. W.H. Boole, D.D.
     Mrs. Boole at once ascended the platform in the interest of the more advanced principles of the temperance reform movement, and soon became prominent in the National W.C.T.U.  She now resides at Prohibition Park, Staten Island, New York.  She is president of the Richmond county W.C.T.U. and first vice-president of the State organization.
     [Ella Boole lived for many years after her husband's death, becoming a national leader in the WCTU.   She ran for New York Senator in 1920, receiving 129,683 votes (5.82%), an amount virtually unheard of for state-level Prohibition candidates.]

  --Data from An Album of Representative Prohibitionists (1895)

“Ella A. Boole was born in Van Wert, Ohio.  After attending the graded school, she entered the University of Wooster, graduating in 1878.  Her record inn college was high, she being among the first in her class, receiving the first prize in the Junior Oratorical Contest.
    After teaching in the high school of her native town for five years, she was married to the Rev. William H. Boole of the Methodist Episcopal Church…..
     She has been an officer in the New York State Woman’s Christian Temperance Union since 1885, having served as Corresponding Secretary, First Vice-President and Secretary of the Young Women’s Branch.  She is now the State President of the W,C,T,U. of New York, which position she has held since 1898.
     As a member of the New York City Woman’s Press Club, and Chairman of the Woman’s Anti-Vice Committee of New York City, she is well known among literary and philanthropic women, while her platform experience extends over half the nation.
     Mrs. Boole has won the degree of Ph.D., but in her modesty never uses it, and, like Frances Willard, has refused positions of large salary, where she might give herself to comparative ease and study, but instead is giving all her powers to this her country’s greatest cause.”

— Speeches of the Flying Squadron

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