The daughter of Governor Allen Trimble, Thompson was inspired by a December 23, 1873 lecture by Diocletian Lewis to begin leading groups of women into saloons where they sang hymns and prayed for the closure of the establishments.

Dr. Lewis, a minister who had a drunken father which contributed to his desire for temperance and abstinence, believed that women needed to be educated on the social evils of alcohol.

In other cases, the retailers simply gave up after being picked on for weeks by the Visitation Bands.

However, it was successful in stimulating the temperance movement, which had declined with the outbreak of the Civil War (1861–1865).

The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) traces its origins to the Women's Crusade against alcohol.