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The National Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was founded following a series of women-led anti-saloon protests in the early 1870s. At the 1874 New York Chautauqua Assembly, women temperance agitators planned the national convention in Cleveland, Ohio where the WCTU was officially formed. Under the guidance of Annie Turner Wittenmyer, the WCTU quickly grew to include thousands of members across the United States. Frances Willard succeeded Wittenmyer in 1879 and directed efforts toward increasing women's involvement in politics. Initially through the lens of temperance, the WCTU became deeply involved in U.S. moral reformation issues including immigration, poverty, and women's suffrage and founded the National Council for Women and the International Council of Women. The WCTU campaigned for prohibition of alcohol and tobacco, labor reform, purity education, women's rights, and social services through a robust publishing program, local and national demonstrations and events, child and adult educational outreach, and political lobbying.

The WCTU experienced aggressive growth throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, reaching its peak in the late 1920s. The WCTU was instrumental in the success of the women's suffrage movement, the constitutional ban on alcohol in the United States (1920-1933), and the 20th century anti-tobacco movement. In the post-Prohibition era, the WCTU continued to campaign for legislation against alochol, tobacco, and other narcotics and remained supportive of social conservatism. The WCTU's presence in Oregon was evidenced by more than eighty local chapters and the construction of WCTU-sponsored drinking fountains in the communities of La Grande and Roseburg. The WCTU continues to operate today, identifying itself as the "oldest voluntary, non-sectarian woman's organization in continuous existence in the world."

Ruth Tibbits Tooze (born 1901) served as Vice President of the Oregon WCTU in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1959, she was elected to serve as the WCTU's ninth national president, a position she held until 1974. Tooze was active in the WCTU's outreach campaigns, targeting youth through educational opportunities and providing guidance for the WCTU's Loyal Temperance Legion (for children ages six to twelve) and the Youth Temperance Council (ages thirteen to twenty).