(borrowed from the Museum for Textiles)


Gather Beneath the Banner - Political and Religious Banners of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union is an exhibition of 21 banners belonging to The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union of Toronto and District. The banners were used by WCTU to bolster the morale of its sections and to express its doctrines to outsiders. Prize banners were awarded within the organisation for exceptional achievement, and were used in parades and processions to publicise the concerns and the aims of the movement. The banners which form the exhibition range date from 1877, shortly after the first local union was formed in Canada in Picton, Ontario, to the 1930s. The exhibition includes archival material from the WCTU, photographs, ribbons, brooches, reproduction posters and artefacts which provide a context for the banners, and help tell the remarkable story of this organisation, and its successful efforts to bring about social change in Canada, most notably the prohibition of alcohol, and women’s suffrage.