Frances WillardWillard, Frances Elizabeth Caroline 1839-1898. American reformer. An ardent advocate of temperance and women’s suffrage, she was the national president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (1879-1898).American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.