desire for safety at home, rather than for an abstract desire for justice as suffragists did. By 1831, there were over 24 women's organizations which were dedicated to the temperance movement. Women were specifically drawn to the temperance movement, because it represented a fight to end a practice that greatly affected women's quality of life. Temperance was seen as a feminine, religious and moral duty, and when it was achieved, it was also seen as a way to gain familial and domestic security as well as salvation in a religious sense. Indeed, scholar Ruth Bordin stated that the temperance movement was "the foremost example of American feminism." Prominent women such as Amelia Bloomer, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony were active in temperance and abolitionist movements in the 1840s. A myriad of factors contributed to women's interest in the temperance movement. One of the initial contributions was the frequency in which women were the victims of those who had an alcohol use disorder. At a Chicago meeting of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Susan B. Anthony stated that women suffer the most from drunkenness. The inability of women to control wages, vote, or own property added to their vulnerability. Another contribution was related to the role of women in the home in the nineteenth century which was largely to preside over the spiritual and physical needs of their homes and families. Because of this, women believed that it was their duty to protect their families from the danger of alcohol and convert their family members to the ideas of abstinence. This newfound calling to temperance, however, did not change the widely held viewpoint that women were only responsible for matters which pertained to their homes. Consequently, women had what Ruth Bordin referred to as the "maternal struggle" which women felt was the internal contradiction that came with their newly-discovered power to make change, while still believing in their nurturing and domestic roles without yet understanding how to use their newly-acquired power. June Sochen called women who joined movements such as women's temperance organizations "pragmatic feminists", because they took action to solve their grievances, but were not interested in altering traditional sex roles. The missionary organizations of many Protestant denominations gave women an avenue to work from; several all-female missionary societies already existed and it was easy for them to transform themselves into women's temperance organizations. In the 1870s