The work of Father Mathew in promoting temperance across the U.S. led to the establishment of numerous separate and independent Catholic temperance groups. The Catholic temperance societies of Connecticut created a state union in 1871, from which a national union was formed the following year at a convention in Baltimore, Maryland. 177 such societies from 10 states and the District of Columbia, representing a total of 26,481 members, created the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America. President Theodore Roosevelt positively cited the work of the Union in an August 1905 address.