Missouri H. Stokes

Missouri H. Stokes (July 24, 1838 – November 27, 1910) was an American social reformer and writer of the long nineteenth century associated with the temperance movement. While working in the missionary field and having charge of the Mission Day School in Atlanta, she found herself drawn into the crusade for temperance after it expanded into the South. In 1880, Stokes became a member of the Atlanta Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the first local Union organized in Georgia. In 1881, she became its secretary, and when the State WCTU was organized in 1883, she was appointed State Corresponding Secretary, holding both offices until her resignation in 1893. For years, she was the Georgia Special Correspondent of The Union Signal, and for various papers in her own State, she furnished temperance articles. Stokes was one of the Georgia women to whose efforts the State was largely indebted for the passage of its General Local Option Law and also for its Scientific Instruction in the Public Schools, thousands of petitions for both these measures being sent by Stokes through the post office.