The Irony Of Differing Perspectives

George Washington, a whiskey distiller himself, thought that distilled spirits were “the ruin of half the workmen in the country….” John Adams, whose daily breakfast included a tankard of hard cider, asked, “….is it not mortifying…. That we, Americans, should exceed all other …. People in the world in this degrading, beastly vice of intemperance?” and Thomas Jefferson, inventor of the presidential cocktail party, feared that the use of cheap, raw whisky was “spreading through the mass of our citizens (Rorabaugh 5).” Drinking was the culture of the American people. During this time “white males taught to drink as children, even as babies. “I have frequently seen fathers” wrote on traveler, “wake their Child of a year old from sleep to make it drink Rum, or Brandy (Rarabaugh 14). This is fascinating for me, because the people were crazy by allowing their teens including babies to drink alcohol. What more interesting is that fathers want their adults of 14 or more to go tavern with

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 desire to control alcohol consumption, or advocate temperance, has been a goal of humanity throughout countless periods of history. Many countries have had organized temperance movements, including Australia, Canada, Britain, Denmark, Poland, and of course, the United States. The American temperance movement was the most widespread reform movement of the 19th century, culminating in laws that completely banned the sale of all alcoholic beverages. The movement progressed from its humble local roots to nationwide organizations with millions of members and large amounts of political power. The growth of the temperance movement resulted from the changes in society between the original American settlers and the post-Revolutionary War

“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.

In the beginning of the Prohibition Era, the supporters of the alcohol ban were met with a pleasing decline in arrest for drunkenness, hospitalizations related to alcohol and the fall of liver related medical problems that were caused by the consumption of alcohol. These statistics seemed to support the tireless campaigning done to prohibit alcohol. This decline in alcohol

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

These passages from the Bible state the malignant outcomes of drinking to an individual. The poster also includes images of each of the four stages so that the meaning of the propaganda could also be interpreted by the illiterate. The Second Great Awakening reviving faith life throughout the country, which made it more common to discuss within society (Document 2). Lyman Beecher was also one of the leaders and creators of the American Temperance society founded in 1826, the same year this poster was published, which implored any drinkers to stop and commit to abstinence pledges. Pamphlets and propaganda were used often to sway drinkers away from leading a life of immoral practices.

children. This act on the State legislatures part led to Anthony and Stanton’s movement of

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.

This is where the desire for prohibition stemmed from. Alcoholic consumption was seen as the cause of much relaxation in social conventions, as it was the supporting cast for so much that made the time period "roar." The growth of organized

In the mid 1600’s, colonial laws attempted to control alcohol consumption, but drinking per se was not remonstrated. Between

One major movement was the temperance movement. In colonial America, informal social controls in the home and community helped maintain the expectation that the abuse of alcohol was unacceptable. There was a clear consensus that while alcohol was a gift form God its abuse was from the Devil. As the colonies grew from a rural society into a more urban one, drinking patterns began to change. As the American

Clark writes of all these different groups that all had an effect towards the outlawing of the saloons. For example “in the 1880’s the WCTU began a campaigning for state laws which would make scientific temperance instruction mandatory in the public schools.” Clark brings to mind many of these groups who many did not know were political forces leading to the passage of the 18th amendment.

All of these Christian denominations believed that alcohol was a gift from God, but to “…get drunk with wine,” (New International Version, Eph 5.18) was to sin. For the next few hundred years, alcohol consumption was seen as an act for moderation. The nineteenth century marks the beginning of a great push for temperance during the Second Great Awakening; this was founded upon an increased level of alcoholism in Europe and America during a time of Industrialization that called for the need of reliable workers (Holt). The Puritan push for temperance became stronger, and in 1826, the Society for the Promotion of Temperance was formed with over five thousand chapters across the United States; this group was partly responsible for the implementation of the illegality of buying alcohol in many states on a Sunday (Indiana is the only state in which this law remains in effect) and for the movement that preceded the Prohibition in 1920 (Holt). The Prohibition disallowed Americans to produce, import, transport, or sell alcoholic beverages; it lasted for thirteen years until the twenty-first amendment ended it because of the reaction it sparked (Holt). In the twenty-first century, the minimum drinking age in all fifty states in America is 21 years old. The science of alcohol, the social science of alcohol, and the international usage of alcohol factor into the controversy of this magic number: 21.