Temperance movement
The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or total abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emphasize alcohol's negative effects on people's health, personalities, and family lives. Typically the movement promotes alcohol education and it also demands the passage of new laws against the sale of alcohol: either regulations on the availability of alcohol, or the prohibition of it.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the temperance movement became prominent in many countries, particularly in English-speaking, Scandinavian, and majority Protestant ones, and it eventually led to national prohibitions in Canada, Norway, Finland, and the United States, as well as some provinces in India. A number of temperance organizations promote temperance.
Context
In late 17th-century North America, alcohol was a vital part of colonial life as a beverage, medicine, and commodity for men, women, and children. Drinking was widely accepted and completely integrated into society; however, drunkenness was not tolerated. In the colonial period of America from around 1623, when a Plymouth minister named William Blackstone began distributing apples and flowers, up until the mid-1800s, hard cider was the primary alcoholic drink of the people. Hard cider was prominent throughout this entire period and nothing compared in scope or availability. It was one of the few aspects of American culture that all the colonies shared. Settlement along the frontier often included a legal requirement whereby an orchard of mature apple trees bearing fruit within three years of settlement were required before a land title was officially granted. For example, The Ohio Company required settlers to plant not less than fifty apple trees and twenty peach trees within three years. These plantings guaranteed land titles. In 1767, the average New England family was consuming seven barrels of hard cider annually, which equates to about 35-gallons per person. Around the mid-1800s, newly arrived immigrants from Germany and elsewhere increased beer's popularity, and the temperance movement and continued westward expansion caused farmers to abandon their cider orchards.Attitudes toward alcohol in Great Britain became increasingly negative in the late 18th century. One of the reasons for this shift was the need for sober laborers to operate heavy machinery developed in the Industrial Revolution. Anthony Benezet suggested abstinence from alcohol in 1775. As early as the 1790s, physician Benjamin Rush envisioned a disease-like syndrome caused by excessive drinking, the "symptoms" being moral and physical decay. He cited abstinence as the only treatment option. Rush saw benefits in fermented drinks, but condemned the use of distilled spirits. As well as addiction, Rush noticed the correlation that drunkenness had with disease, death, suicide, and crime. According to "Pompili, Maurizio et al", there is increasing evidence that, aside from the volume of alcohol consumed, the pattern of the drinking is relevant for health outcomes. Overall, there is a causal relationship between alcohol consumption and more than 60 types of diseases and injuries. Alcohol is estimated to cause about 20–30% of cases of esophageal cancer, liver cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, homicide, epilepsy and motor vehicle accidents. After the American Revolution, Rush called upon ministers of various churches to act in preaching the messages of temperance. However, abstinence messages were largely ignored by Americans until the 1820s.
History
is one of the cardinal virtues listed in Aristotle's tractate the Nicomachean Ethics.Origins (pre-1820)
During the 18th century, Native American cultures and societies were severely affected by alcohol, which was often given in trade for furs, leading to poverty and social disintegration. As early as 1737, Native American temperance activists began to campaign against alcohol and for legislation to restrict the sale and distribution of alcoholic drinks in indigenous communities. During the colonial era, leaders such as Peter Chartier, King Hagler and Little Turtle resisted the use of rum and brandy as trade items, in an effort to protect Native Americans from cultural changes they viewed as destructive.In the 18th century, there was a gin craze in Great Britain. The middle classes became increasingly critical of the widespread drunkenness among the lower classes. Motivated by the middle-class desire for order, and amplified by the population growth in the cities, the drinking of gin became the subject of critical national debate. In 1743, John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Churches, proclaimed "that buying, selling, and drinking of liquor, unless absolutely necessary, were evils to be avoided".
In the early 19th-century United States, alcohol was still regarded as a necessary part of the American diet for both practical and social reasons. Water supplies were often polluted, milk was not always available, and coffee and tea were expensive. Social constructs of the time also made it impolite for people to refuse alcohol. Drunkenness was not a problem, because people would only drink small amounts of alcohol throughout the day; at the turn of the 19th century, however, overindulgence and subsequent intoxication became problems that often led to the disintegration of the family. Early temperance societies, often associated with churches, were located in upstate New York and New England, but only lasted a few years. These early temperance societies called for moderate drinking, but had little influence outside of their geographical areas.
In 1810, Calvinist ministers met in a seminary in Massachusetts to write articles about abstinence from alcohol to use in preaching to their congregations. The Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance was formed in 1813. The organization only accepted men of high social standing and encouraged moderation in alcohol consumption. Its peak of influence was in 1818, and it ended in 1820, having made no significant mark on the future of the temperance movement. Other small temperance societies appeared in the 1810s, but had little impact outside their immediate regions and they disbanded soon after. Their methods had little effect in implementing temperance, and drinking actually increased until after 1830; however, their methods of public abstinence pledges and meetings, as well as handing out pamphlets, were implemented by more lasting temperance societies such as the American Temperance Society.
The first temperance society in Pennsylvania, of which a record has been found was that of "Darby Association for Discouraging the Unnecessary Use of Spirituous Liquors" organized in Delaware County in 1819, at the Darby Friends Meetinghouse.
Promoting moderation (1820s–1830s)
The temperance movement in the United States began at a national level in the 1820s, having been popularized by evangelical temperance reformers and among the middle classes. There was a concentration on advice against hard spirits rather than on abstinence from all alcohol, and on moral reform rather than legal measures against alcohol. An earlier temperance movement had begun during the American Revolution in Connecticut, Virginia and New York state, with farmers forming associations to ban whiskey distilling. The movement spread to eight states, advocating temperance rather than abstinence and taking positions on religious issues such as observance of the Sabbath.After the American Revolution there was a new emphasis on good citizenship for the new republic. With the Evangelical Protestant religious revival of the 1820s and 1830s, called the Second Great Awakening, social movements began aiming for a perfect society. This included abolitionism and temperance. The Awakening brought with it an optimism about moral reform, achieved through volunteer organizations. Although the temperance movement was nonsectarian in principle, the movement consisted mostly of church-goers.
The temperance movement promoted temperance and emphasized the moral, economical and medical effects of overindulgence. Connecticut-born minister Lyman Beecher published a book in 1826 called Six Sermons on...Intemperance. Beecher described inebriation as a "national sin" and suggested legislation to prohibit the sales of alcohol. He believed that it was only possible for drinkers to reform in the early stages of addiction, because anyone in advanced stages of addiction, according to Beecher, had damaged their morality and could not be saved. Early temperance reformers often viewed drunkards as warnings rather than as victims of a disease, leaving the state to take care of them and their conduct. In the same year, the American Temperance Society was formed in Boston, Massachusetts, within 12 years claiming more than 8,000 local groups and over 1,250,000 members. Presbyterian preacher Charles Grandison Finney taught abstinence from ardent spirits. In the Rochester, New York revival of 1831, individuals were required to sign a temperance pledge in order to receive salvation. Finney believed and taught that the body represented the "temple of God" and anything that harmed the "temple", including alcohol, must be avoided. By 1833, several thousand groups similar to the ATS had been formed in most states. In some of these large communities, temperance almanacs were released which gave information about planting and harvesting as well as current information about temperance-related issues.
Temperance societies were being organized in England about the same time, many inspired by a Belfast professor of theology, and Presbyterian Church of Ireland minister John Edgar, who poured his stock of whiskey out of his window in 1829. He mainly concentrated on the elimination of spirits rather than wine and beer. On August 14, 1829, he wrote a letter in the Belfast Telegraph publicizing his views on temperance. He also formed the Ulster Temperance Movement with other Presbyterian clergy, initially enduring ridicule from members of his community.
The 1830s saw a tremendous growth in temperance groups, not just in England and the United States, but also in British colonies, especially New Zealand and Australia. The Pequot writer and minister William Apess established the first formal Native American temperance society among the Maspee Indians on 11 October 1833.
Out of the religious revival and reform appeared the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Seventh-day Adventism, new Christian denominations that established criteria for healthy living as a part of their religious teachings, namely temperance.