Reform The Temperance Movement Early 19 th Century

Reform The Temperance Movement Early 19 th Century

What caused the movement? • Americans were drinking a lot in the early 19 th century. • The amount was equivalent to an adult drinking 800 shots of whiskey a year. • Liquor was an absolute normal accompaniment to whatever men did in groups. • The dram was a part of the daily wages. • Workmen drank with their employees.

“An Alcoholic Republic” • • • Work was producing alcoholics Low quality work “Blue Mondays” Rise in crime Abuse Family Breakup

A Case of Infectious Fever

“The Drunkards”

A Swell Head

Who is part of the reform? • It became a middle class obsession. • Upper middle class wanted workers to show up sober. • The will be the birth of the Middle Class. • In 1828, gentlemen formed the Rochester Society for the Promotion of Temperance.

A Moral Thermometer

Changes that came about as a result of the reform movement. • Until 1830’s mail was delivered 7 days a week. • Temperance was advanced as a sign of respectability, reliability, and general moral and economic worth. The good old days of drinking as a sign of manliness, had long passed. • A printer gave his workers a Bible and a glass of cold water instead of a dram of whiskey. • Leading men encouraged temperance.

Maine Liquor Law

Root Beer a Temperance Drink

The Temperance Pledge

Pennsylvania Catholic Total Abstinence Society Pledge • I promise to abstain from ALL intoxicating drinks, except used medicinally and by order of a medical man, and to discountenance the cause and practice of intemperance.

Pledge for Children • I do hereby pledge myself to abstain entirely and forever from the use of all intoxicating liquor as a drink.

American Temperance Union Pledge • We whose names are hereunto annexed, believing that the use of intoxicating liquor, as a beverage, is not only needless, but hurtful to the social, civil, and religious interests of men: that it tends to form intemperate appetites and habits, and that while it is continued, the evils of intemperance can never be done away: do therefore agree that we will not use it or traffic in it: that we will not provide it as an article of entertainment or for persons in our employment: and that in all suitable ways, we will discountenance the use of it throughout the community.

Summary • Overall consumption of alcohol decreased from 7 gallons per capita in 1830 to 2 gallons per capita in 1860.

Sources • Johnson, Paul E. - “Class, Liquor, and Reform in Rochester” • Ryan, Mary P. - “Middle-Class Women and Moral Reform” • www. librarycompany. org/Ardent. Spirits/index. htm