Temperance Reform In The 19th Century

The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition is a very interesting book written by W.J. Rorabaugh which anlyze the high prevalence of alcohol consumption in United States during the early 19th century. When he explains how he started writing the book, he said that when he was looking for a long essay in a particular subject he came across a lot of temperance pamphlets from the 1820’s and 30’s. That is the starting point of writing the book for him. He has stated in the preface Ix that Americans drank more alcoholic beverages percapita than ever before or since between 1790 and 1830. He has mentioned

The authors intent on the Temperance Movement was to show how people were trying to stop the Temperance Movement. The people involved in the stopping of alcohol sales were know where close to stopping it. The prohibition on alcohol was far from being possible on stopping alcohol consumption in the United States. “In the great arc of American history, it is tempting to view the anti-alcohol forces as a historical anomaly, a minor obstacle that interrupted the march from

The United States of America experienced several reform movements from 1825 to 1850. The reformers sought to improve religion, rehabilitation of criminals and mental patients, education, slavery, and women’s rights. Each demonstrated democratic ideals to the extent that the reformers sought to incorporate the values of liberty and equality into their reform movements to improve the quality of life but did so at the expense and dismay of others.

During the 1920’s many women complained of their husbands coming home intoxicated and being violent. Men would be under the influence and they would get very angry and begin to beat their wives and their children. On average the amount of pure alcohol consumed by the average American, on an annual basis, was seven gallons. Abuse of women and children was also becoming an issue due to the increasing alcohol problem.

“By 1830, the average American over 15 years old consumed nearly seven gallons of pure alcohol a year – three times as much as we drink today” (PBS, nd). The result was the temperance movement. The Temperance movement was an anti-movement that swept across the country in the 1830s and 40s. The abolitionists tried to show that drinking alcohol was a sin and that the country needed to be cleansed. They called for a prohibition of alcohol. On January 17th, 1920, an amendment to the constitution was passed that banned the making, transporting, and selling of alcohol and other intoxicating beverages.

Throughout the eighteen hundreds saloons were the site of rockus drinking, profane drunkards, and unthinking violence. This drinking culture was defined by masculinity and by free flowing alcohol that permeated all throughout America, city to city. The saloons became so popular with working men because it was time they could spend away from their wives and their homes. In Catherine Murdock’s book Domesticating Drink she argues that these elements of saloon culture, exclusivity, inebriety, and violence, were eliminated by the increase in popularity of mixed sex speakeasies, cocktail parties, and the overall domestication of drink. But this conclusion misinterprets the history of alcohol from Prohibition to the present. Although alcohol is now consumed without the exclusively of the past, it has evolved to be over sexualized and associated with a masculine culture of binge drinking over sexualized and domestic violence.

In his book, The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition, William J. Rorabaugh makes the argument that early American society was a place where alcohol flowed freely through every level of society. Americans in the late eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century partook in so widely it was one of the defining characteristics of the culture of the early United States. Using data collected from censuses, surveys, and reports from those who traveled across the country in its early years, Rorabaugh concludes that the drinking in the United States found no barriers with age, sex, race, class, or location. But his assumptions and conclusion are not proved strongly enough by hard evidence and data to be considered a reliable narrative of the early America.

The antebellum temperance reform was not motivated by religious moralism, however, religion did play a part in spreading it. Originally, drinking liquor was a very common thing, “In shipbuilding, workers enjoyed ceremonial provisions of strong drink in addition to their daily rations. At the completion of each major stage of construction they joined with shipowners and masters to toast their work’s progress.” (Rumbarger 268) As a result of how common it became, businesses with employees would constantly be losing a good amount of money to liquor overall for their workers and not receiving the best quality of work from those drunken workers. This can be seen as a republican virtues which is the idea of giving to your community by sacrificing

The antebellum temperance reform was primarily motivated by religious ideas that would use the fear of the Devil and going to hell and cause people to fear becoming sinful from drinking. The Second Great Awakening allowed for a revival of religious feelings which would then impact the “Era of Good Feelings.” These religious feelings would help people through their troubles and anxiety and allow for them to believe in a better solution and allow for people to become less stressed and happier than they were without religion. To follow up the religious revival in the people at the time, “... they advocated religious faith as a way for people to ease the anxieties that led to drink; on the other hand, they made drinking itself the source of anxieties

Gender inequality and slavery were the two biggest evils that reformers tried eliminating in the time period. The abolition of slavery had many reformers behind it. Two very important men trying to achieve this were Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison, a white man, going to show there was support from all types of people. Two of the women’s rights advocates were Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sarah Grimke. They both achieved great things to help out their cause. Although slavery and gender equality are arguably the most important evils in the time period there were still many other. One of these was alcohol. During the time period the Temperance

As Americans entered an era of transition and instability, they sought to expand democratic ideals in the society. In response to sudden changes occurring and traditional values being challenged, various reform movements during 1825-1850 began to focus on democratic ideals. The rise of religious revivals, movements for equal rights and protecting liberties of different social groups, want to advance society technologically, and desire to bring order and control helped reform the society to live up to the nation’s founding ideals. Teaching them (I don’t get who “them” is) the habits of thrift, orderliness, temperance and industry was a way to not only better their lives but a way to instill certain democratic values and advance the

The Temperance Movement in Antebellum America was one of the largest moral reforms of in 1800s. Several members of the community fought for the prohibition of alcohol, rather than just limiting the about being consumed. However, “many farmers argued that the society and its desire to eradicate King Alcohol—as temperance advocates often termed alcoholic beverages—were a scheme to deprive the people of their liberty." Starting with main in the 1851, twelve states and territories outlawed the consumptions of alcohol. Temperance leaders came about and the movement created many different temperance groups that later used an assortment of tactics and persuasion to get their points across such as political, art, and even education. “During the first great wave of temperance protest lasting from the 1830s through the 1850s, working-class radicals and union organizers had urged temperance as necessary to both self-improvement and resistance to workplace oppression.”

The overview of taverns and drinking and their great impact on daily life is obvious in the evidence and narration Salinger provides. She uses a journal written by Thomas Jefferson to explain how deeply entrenched in their daily lives taverns and drinking were: “Thomas Jefferson noted with alarm that cheap distilled spirits were “spreading through the mass of our citizens,” yet he is credited with inventing the presidential cocktail party”(3). Despite any negativity surrounding drinking, its growth in popularity was unstoppable. She also adds the fact that ‘water was considered an unsafe beverage’, which partially explains the reason for alcohol’s rise to popularity and appearance in the daily lives of early Americans. This increase in drinking also lead to the tavern culture and the need to regulate it, which brings in the lawmaking side.

There were so many reforms that happened during the 1830s and 1840s; many of which made a great impact, some didn’t make any impact, and some had an impact that took place a great deal later. Below are just some of the movements that were believed, created and fought for:

During the 19th Century there were many reform movements that took place. Reform movements were movements that were organized to reform or change the certain way of things. Reform movements did not always work but the ones that did greatly changed the way our nation operates today. There were three major reform movements that have altered the nation; the abolitionist movement, the temperance movement and the women 's suffrage movement. Without these movements, and the great leaders involved, many common rights would not exist today.