The temperance movement was a reaction to a national trend toward increased alcohol consumption at the beginning of the 19th century. Americans had been heavy drinkers since colonial times, but the opening of western lands such as Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Tennessee led to the mass production of grains from which whiskey could be made. Whiskey was both cheaper and more potent than rum, the traditional standby, and it began flooding markets nationwide. By the 1830s each American of drinking age (15 and older) was imbibing an estimated 6.6 to 7.1 gallons of hard liquor every year—and suffering commensurate debilitating effects. These were particularly evident among the lower classes, who drank the most, but did not spare wealthier individuals with little resistance to alcohol.
Using tactics as varied as moral suasion, strict licensing, and outright prohibition, the temperance movement aimed to eradicate the use of alcoholic beverages throughout American society. While local groups had been advocating abstinence from alcohol since the turn of the 19th century, temperance societies with a broader reach began to emerge in 1813. That year, the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance (MSSI), was founded in Boston. An elitist group seeking to control the behavior of those lower in the social hierarchy, the MSSI focused its efforts on moderation rather than abstinence. But the drinking culture proved too powerful for a group with such limited appeal, and its efforts soon failed.
Boston would later give rise to the national organization responsible for temperance’s widespread influence. It was there that, in 1826, the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance was born. This group later changed its name to the American Temperance Society (ATS). The ATS had a radically different approach from that of the MSSI, seeking mass appeal on a grassroots level. Founded by evangelical ministers who had emerged from a culture of religious revivalism, the ATS used the same tactics to spread the gospel of abstinence from distilled spirits. By distributing printed materials such as vivid tracts and weekly newspapers and sending itinerant organizers to far-flung communities, the ATS grew rapidly. By 1835, the society claimed over 1.5 million members in more than 8,000 auxiliaries, nearly 20 percent of the free adult population. Tactically, the group was committed to moderation of, not complete abstinence from, alcoholic consumption. To get its message across, ATS co-opted the tactic of moral suasion, usually used in concert with education and good example.
The success of the temperance movement was possibly due to the overall climate of progressive reform during this period. Many historians have dubbed the years between 1830 and 1850 as an “age of reform.” Religious revivalism, the abolition movement, pacifism, women’s status AND rights, intentional communities, and universal education were only a few of the causes embraced by segments of the American public. industrialization, westward expansion, and urbanization contributed to the notion of inevitable American progress. Within these contexts, religious and moral reform could be seen as intrinsic to the new nation’s future.
Evangelical clergy, businessmen, and farmers were at the forefront of this economic and social change. Although they operated within divergent spheres, these men found common cause in seeking to improve society as a whole by urging their parishioners and employees to improve themselves.
Intellectual elites also took part in temperance reform. The movement spread rapidly on college campuses as administrators, faculty, and students sponsored revivals and built reform networks. Doctors soon followed suit, as the 19th-century drive to professionalize medicine depended on distinguishing it from midwifery and other folk-healing practices. Adopting a view of alcohol as harmful helped solidify the role of physicians as experts in health-related matters.
In the 1840s temperance experienced a minor revival at the hands of activists called the Washingtonians, who, in contrast to traditional middle-class advocates, directed their appeal to the working and lower middle classes. Their efforts to redeem inebriates used the testimony of former drunkards in gatherings akin to revival meetings of the Second Great Awakening. Women were also invited to join Martha Washington societies to help husbands and sons abstain from alcohol. Indeed, their goal was no less than total abstinence. Washingtonians, however, still delivered their message through moral suasion, a tactic that mainstream temperance societies had long since abandoned. The movement also suffered from a lack of formal organization at the national level and a lack of farsighted leaders. Accordingly, after a few years of notoriety, the Washingtonian movement faded away and was replaced by a spate of fraternal organizations such as the Sons of Temperance. These introduced the temperance movement to secret handshakes, rituals, ceremonies, and other trappings of fraternal behavior. By 1850 the Sons of Temperance had chapters in every state and a membership estimated at over 238,000, but they enjoyed no greater success than their antecedents.
Temperance reform attracted women for a variety of reasons. The mid-19th century ideology casting men and women as belonging to separate spheres valued women as moral gatekeepers of the home in what historians describe as the “cult of true womanhood.” The growing market
ECONOMY brought about an increase in female dependence on male wages earned outside the home. Excessive drunkenness among men could thus imperil women’s financial stability.
Initially, the temperance movement was less grounded in political activism than in moral suasion; as such, women were encouraged to participate within a seemingly nonpolitical sphere of activity. However, that distinction would later break down as moral reform gave way to the drive for prohibition. By 1852, prominent female activists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Amelia Bloomer began to link the temperance crusade to broader campaigns for women’s rights.
The first temperance pledges, which members would sign, vowed abstinence from distilled spirits but allowed for the continued consumption of fermented beverages such as beer, wine, and cider. These were considered to contain some elements of alcohol but not alcohol itself. A new pledge rose during the 1830s, known as the “long” and “teetotal” pledge, which included both distilled and fermented beverages. The teetotal movement came about from the earlier reform movement’s success and sense of progress, as well as from changing scientific knowledge about the alcohol content of fermented beverages. The discovery by a chemist during the 1820s that alcohol was also present in wine, beer, and cider became widely publicized, changing the popular view of fermented beverages as essentially harmless.
Teetotalism marked a major shift in temperance activism, one that was not universally adopted by reformers. Some found it too radical, especially wealthy elites who were not eager to abandon wine. Wine also became a subject of controversy within organized religion due to the practice of distributing fermented wine for communion. Many mainstream clergy, who had been central to the temperance movement, withdrew their support.
During the 1830s, temperance advocates began to shift their efforts from moral suasion to more coercive methods, including legal reform. Foremost among them was the American Temperance Union (ATU), which had replaced the more accommodating American Temperance Society by 1836. Initial legal efforts by temperance activists were designed to be symbolic. Various states adopted nolicense laws in order to send a moral message to their constituents that the sale of liquor was no longer a respectable profession; their intention was not to use the law to prevent people from drinking. Regardless of the law’s intent, liquor became hard to come by in these areas. As a result, illegal sales proliferated much as they would under nationwide prohibition during the 1920s. Moreover, with its radicalized stance the new temperance movement began losing adherents nationally, first among wealthy supporters and then among southerners of all classes and backgrounds.
It remained relatively strong in terms of numbers only in New England and New York, whose polity was by then also hotly embroiled in other reform issues such as abolition. Prohibition activity continued throughout the 1840s, until the landmark passage of the Maine Law in 1851 banning the manufacture of liquor and restricting its sale to agents of the state for medicinal and industrial users.
The success of the Maine Law spurred other states to implement prohibition. Between 1851 and 1855, 13 states and territories passed legislation forbidding the manufacture and sale of alcohol. Other states passed narrower laws restricting sales to a specific amount or location. Such efforts met with strong opposition from liquor manufacturers, who formed liquor leagues to finance and organize repeal efforts. Some drinkers became vehemently opposed to prohibition as well, sparking violence in cities like Chicago and New York. Repeal efforts were successful in many states, to the dismay of temperance advocates.
This groundswell of public opposition, combined with growing sectional strife and the approaching Civil War, caused the temperance movement to founder. Its revival did not take place until the formation of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in the 1870s. The new temperance movement, unlike earlier male-driven ones, proved a formidable platform for a broader women’s rights agenda.
Further reading: Jack S. Blocker, American Temiperance Movements: Cycles of Reform (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989); Eric Burns, The Spirits of Africa: A Social History of Alcohol (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004); John W. Frick, Theater, Culture, and Temperance Reform in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Jessy Randall and Nicole Ketcham, “Ardent Spirits: The Origins of the American Temperance Movement,” Journal for Multimedia History (URL: http:// Www. albany. edu/jmmh/vol2no1/spirits. html; downloaded 2001).
—Eva Pendleton
World History
