TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT.   Term Paper ID:25715 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: History of anti-alcohol movement in 19th Cent. Goals, leaders, opposition, effects.... More...

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Paper Abstract: History of anti-alcohol movement in 19th Cent. Goals, leaders, opposition, effects. Paper Introduction: In the nineteenth century, the evils of demon rum were proclaimed from pulpits and attacked by various temperance groups. These efforts would be seen in this century as precursors of the prohibition movement which would result in the era of Prohibition, a failed social experiment that may actually have increased drinking rather than reducing it. The methods used by the movement changed during the course of the century, and success was spotty at best. The movement branched out to include a wide variety of other social concerns under one umbrella and so helped generate the kind of reform impulse that fired the progressive Movement at the beginning of this century. The Temperance Movement had a boom in the early part of the nineteenth century and then lost power in the 1820s in the face of social elitism, ineffective tactics, and internal squabbling. Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Indeed, he begins his book in 16 9 with theAmerican physician Benjamin Rush, who pontificated on a variety of medicalsubjects, including the problem of alcoholism. Mello. Willard drew on the sort of systematization taking place in thebusiness world for a method of running the WCTU. Putnam's Sons, 1965.Kobler, John. Bordin's analysis depicts the beginnings of the progressivemovement that would culminate in the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment,though the story told by Bordin stops well short of that era. Themethods used by the movement changed during the course of the century, andsuccess was spotty at best. The WCTU bythis time was heavily involved in politics and sought to elect candidateswho would support its agenda, and women descended on legislators to demandthe passage of temperance laws. New York: G.P. Exploiting the power of the printed word, a massive propaganda campaign was initiated through the distribution of millions of cheap Temperance tracts. The great Temperance reform of the 183 s reduced the percapita consumption of alcohol: Consumption of both liquor and cider plunged to levels so low that by 1849 American adults were drinking 75 percent less absolute alcohol than they had drunk just two decades before (Mendelson and Mello 33).Many establishments selling alcohol were closed. Ruth Bordin writesabout the development of the Women's Christian Temperance Union in the187 s and the course taken by that organization over the next threedecades. His sermons were widelycirculated. . The Life and Times of the Late Demon Rum. However, the political fortunes of themovement waned in the 188 s (Lender and Martin 112). Women and Temperance. Furnas, who traces changes in attitude toward alcohol from colonialtimes to Prohibition. The movement branched out to include a widevariety of other social concerns under one umbrella and so helped generatethe kind of reform impulse that fired the progressive Movement at thebeginning of this century. After the Civil War, agitators for a dry America looked around and sawwhat they considered "the rampant social and political disorder ofpostbellum America" and came to a decision on how to attack the problem: They refurbished the holistic antebellum view of social evils as interrelated--with intemperance at the center of most of them. New York: G.P. The development of a criminal class was one of the concerns of thetemperance movement, for they say alcohol as reducing inhibitions and so asadding to the problem of crime as well as family and other social problems. The twomovements came together in the form of the Reverend Lyman Beecher, whoundertook to fight the evils of alcohol beginning in 181 . Passionately committed to women's rights, she was also convinced that liquor was an especial threat to the status and morality of women (Lender and Martin 1 9).Willard remained head of the union until her death in 1898, and by then theorganization had a membership in the hundreds of thousands: "The WCTUrepresented the first mass entry of women into American reform work andpolitics" (Lender and Martin 1 9). Ardent Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. The Anti-Saloon League would take over from the WCTU in the fight against alcoholafter 19 (Bordin xviii). Works CitedBordin, Ruth. By 1884, there was one department sending outinformation on drugs, another on world peace, and still another trying tocultivate "good citizenship" among immigrants, blacks, and Indians.Willard herself was in charge of the Social Purity Department, "whichsought laws against seduction, rape, prostitution, and sexual intercoursewith women younger than eighteen" (Lender and Martin 11 ). Ten years later,the issue emerged once more as a major social movement "its power andinfluence increased almost in direct proportion to its companion religiousreform movement, the Great Awakening" (Mendelson and Mello 27). In the nineteenth century, the evils of demon rum were proclaimedfrom pulpits and attacked by various temperance groups. The American temperance Society is seen as offering a majorinnovation in the politics of special interest groups: By organizing large numbers of energetic, middle-class men and women into locally based voluntary interest groups, Temperance reformers were able to raise funds and apply pressure directly on the political process. As to the latter, Furnas agrees with other writersthat Prohibition left America with a criminal class that had not had suchpower before: Prohibition was certainly a ravaging ailment. John Kobler is another historian of temperance who sees the issue asbeginning long before 192 . In so doing, he was goingagainst the social views of his time, for the colonies prized alcohol as"one of the good creatures of God, to be received with thanksgiving"(Kobler 25). Bordin is interested here in the history oftemperance, and she notes that the era of prohibition which ended in 1933caused a problem in that historians then ignored the depth and scope of theproblem Prohibition had attempted to solve; namely, the problem ofalcoholism: A whole generation of writers viewed temperance agitation as a frivolous interference with basic individual liberty and a preoccupation with an issue that was at best marginal to the real problems of a rapidly industrializing and urbanizing society. One of the most vociferous groups engaging in such linkage was theWCTU. The next stage included a new set of players. She knew that more women could be mobilized for the cause if theWCTU espoused other concerns than drinking, so the organization in timeestablished 4 separate departments, each with its own superintendent andreform activities. His most famoussermon came in 1825 and was called "Six Sermons on the Nature, Occasions,Signs, Evils and Remedy of Intemperance." Beecher was one of the first tosuggest the outright banning of distilled beverages. The Temperance Movement had a boom in the early part of thenineteenth century and then lost power in the 182 s in the face of socialelitism, ineffective tactics, and internal squabbling. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981.Furnas, J.C. and Nancy K. Still, the movementprepared the way for the decision in the next century to pass Prohibitionand to try to reduce drinking and solve a number of social problems all atthe same time, though, as noted, with mixed results. Historians saw the saloon as a benign institution that served a vital social function as a poor man's club (Bordin xiv- xv).For Bordin, though, the history leading up to Prohibition is important andhelps define the problem that the Eighteenth Amendment was meant toaddress. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1985.----------------------- 7 Another account of the history of the temperance movement is offeredby J.C. These effortswould be seen in this century as precursors of the prohibition movementwhich would result in the era of Prohibition, a failed social experimentthat may actually have increased drinking rather than reducing it. A devout methodist, she had pursued a distinguished career in education (she was the first dean of women at Northwestern University) before turning full-time to temperance. New York: Free Press, 1982.Mendelson, Jack H. The first success of theTemperance Movement reached its apex around 1835. The movement gained support in the 183 s and broadened its base,though it remained confined largely to women, the medical profession, andthe clergy. Putnam's, 1973.Lender, Mark Edward and James Kirby Martin. . This also demonstrates a part of theorganization of that segment of the population that would support thebeginning of Prohibition, and prohibition was a goal of the WCTU. Alcohol: Use and Abuse in America. A group formed in Massachusetts to follow his teachings wascalled the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance, later shortedto the American Temperance Society (Mendelson and Mello 28-29). Their first president was Annie Wittenmeyer, and under herleadership the organization concentrated primarily on temperance work.When Frances Willard took charge in 1879, though, the organization shiftedunder her guidance: Willard was an extraordinary leader. Kobler traces the development of the temperance movement fromthe American colonial era through the creation of the Women's ChristianTemperance League and others in the late nineteenth century to the NobleExperiment, Prohibition, from 192 to 1934. Thus, these new temperance workers were convinced that their neorepublican vision of the good society could become reality only through a broad-based reform effort (Lender and Martin 1 9).In an effort to solve all problems at once, Senator Henry Blair of NewHampshire offered Congress in 1876 the first national Prohibition amendmentto the Constitution, which also championed women's rights and education.Neal Dow ran for president as a Prohibitionist in 188 and also campaignedfor education, suffrage, the income tax, and the direct election ofsenators. What shedoes show is first that the WCTU provided the basis for the women'smovement that would follow and organized women in a political way that hadnever been achieved before. After a large special interest network was established, the literature of protest continued through the mailing and distribution of annual reports, Temperance almanacs, special circulars, weekly newspapers, and Temperance journals (Mendelson and Mello 3 -31). and among the scars and bodily impairments it left were things even worse than the perpetuation of a newly powerful underworld (Furnas 345). He characterizedintemperance in both physical and moral terms. She indeed structured theunion in an orderly image such as she envisioned for the rest of thecountry. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.