[5] At the first convention of the WCTU, the need of an official organ was recognized, and Abby Fisher Leavitt, of Cincinnati, moved the appointment of a committee "to consider the question of publishing a paper".
The following June, the first number of the paper, called the Woman's Temperance Union, was issued, its first editor being Jennie Fowler Willing, of Illinois, and its publisher Mary Coffin Johnson, of New York.
At an executive meeting held at the close of the Newark Convention in 1876, a publishing committee was appointed: Mary Towne Burt, New York; Jane M. Geddes, Michigan; Frances E. Willard, Illinois; Esther Pugh, Ohio; Harriet Maria Haven, Vermont; Zerelda G. Wallace, Indiana, and Caroline Brown Buell, Connecticut.
The quorum at once changed the name to Our Union, made Burt publisher, and Margaret Elizabeth Winslow, of Brooklyn, editor.
[6] The weekly newspaper was named The Signal and its first issue appeared January 4, 1880; it was 16 pages in size.