temperance movements

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A powerful social and political force in Victorian Britain. Though it did not succeed in eradicating drink, it helped to control it. Between 1831 and 1931, spirit consumption per head p.a. fell from 1.11 gallons to 0.22, and beer from 21.6 gallons to 13.3. Direct propaganda was not the only factor in this change: others included growing respectability, improved amenities, more comfortable homes, and a decline in occupations of heavy labour where drink was a necessity. The chief support of the temperance movement was the dissenting bodies, who carried it as an issue into the Liberal Party, which adopted local option on the sale of drink as part of its Newcastle Programme in 1891.

The leading organizations were the British and Temperance Society (1831), the British Association for the Promotion of Temperance (1835), the National Temperance Society (1842), and the United Kingdom Alliance (1853). One of the best publicized groups was the Band of Hope, founded in Leeds in 1847 to appeal to children. A trusted technique was to persuade men to ‘take the pledge’—an action first agreed in 1832 by seven workmen in Preston. The movement often took the form of a religious revival and was referred to as a crusade. Drink was ‘the demon’, the pledge echoed baptism, and the solemn reading of the names of backsliders was a form of excommunication.

The movement to curb the use of alcohol was one of the central reform efforts of American history. From earliest settlement, consumption of alcohol was a widely accepted practice in America, and while drunkenness was denounced, both distilled and fermented beverages were considered nourishing stimulants. In 1673 the Puritan divine Increase Mather condemned drunkenness as a sin, yet said "Drink in itself is a good creature of God, and to be received with thankfulness." Alcohol was not prohibited but rather regulated through licensing.

Growth of the Temperance Movement

The half century after independence witnessed both a gradual change in attitudes toward alcoholic beverages and an increase in alcohol production and consumption. A pamphlet by the prominent Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush entitled An Inquiry into the Effects of Spirituous Liquors on the Human Mind and Body, published in 1784, was an early voice denouncing the harmful effects of distilled liquors. The first temperance society of record was formed in Litchfield County, Connecticut, in 1789 by prominent citizens convinced that alcohol hindered the conduct of their businesses. In 1813 the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance was formed by society's elites—clergymen, town officials, and employers—"to suppress the too free use of ardent spirits, and its kindred vices, profaneness and gambling, and to encourage and promote temperance and general morality," as its constitution proclaimed. There was good reason for the concern of these early temperance advocates. The newly opened western lands in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Kentucky were producing grain more easily transported if converted to whiskey. Cheaper than rum, whiskey soon flooded the market. Estimates are that between 1800 and 1830 the annual per capita consumption of absolute alcohol among the drinking-age population (fifteen and older) ranged from 6.6 to 7.1 gallons.

By 1825 the forces of evangelical Protestantism mobilized for the temperance crusade. In that year, the Connecticut clergyman Lyman Beecher preached six sermons warning of the dangers of intemperance to a Christian republic. The next year sixteen clergy and laypersons in Boston signed the constitution of the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance. The reformers sensed divine compulsion to send out missionaries to preach the gospel of abstinence from the use of distilled spirits. Using an effective system of state, county, and local auxiliaries, the American Temperance Society (ATS) soon claimed national scope. Voluntary contributions enabled it to support agents who visited every part of the country, striving to affiliate all temperance groups with the national society. By 1831 the ATS reported over 2,200 known societies in states throughout the country, including 800 in New England, 917 in the Middle Atlantic states, 339 in the South, and 158 in the Northwest.

The efforts of the ATS were aimed at the moderate drinker to encourage total abstinence from distilled liquor. By the late 1830s, the national organization, now called the American Temperance Union, was attempting to distance itself from antislavery reformers to placate southern temperance societies, sponsor legislation against the liquor traffic, and adopt a pledge of total abstinence from all intoxicants, the teetotal pledge. However, each of these efforts sparked internal division and external opposition, which, along with the 1837 panic and ensuing depression, weakened the reform movement.

Interest in temperance revived with the appearance of the Washingtonian movement in 1840. Six tipplers in Baltimore took the abstinence pledge, formed a temperance organization named after the first president, and began to spread the temperance gospel. Aimed at inebriates rather than moderate drinkers, Washingtonian meetings featured dramatic personal testimonies of deliverance from demon rum akin to the revival meetings of the Second Great Awakening, as well as other social activities to replace the conviviality of the tavern. Orators such as John B. Gough and John H. W. Hawkins toured the country, including the South, lecturing on temperance. The Washingtonian impulse was strong but short-lived, owing to lack of organization and leadership.

The enthusiasm generated by the Washingtonians was captured and institutionalized by the Sons of Temperance, a fraternal organization formed in 1842 by some Washingtonians concerned about the frequency of back-sliding. They proposed an organization "to shield us from the evils of Intemperance; afford mutual assistance in case of sickness; and elevate our character as men." A highly structured society requiring dues and a total abstinence pledge, the Sons introduced a new phase of the temperance movement, the fraternal organization with secret handshakes, rituals, ceremonies, and regalia. The organization spread rapidly and all but a few states had Grand Divisions of the Sons by 1847. The peak year of membership was 1850, when the rolls listed over 238,000 members.

At the same time the Sons of Temperance was flourishing, Father Theobald Mathew, the well-known Irish Apostle of Temperance, undertook a speaking tour through the United States. Between July 1849 and November 1851, he traveled the country administering the temperance pledge to several hundred thousand people, many of them Irish Americans. His tour illustrated some of the dynamics affecting the temperance movement. Upon his arrival in America, Mathew was greeted by William Lloyd Garrison, who pressured him to reaffirm an abolition petition Mathew had signed some years earlier. Seeking to avoid controversy, and aware that he planned to tour the South, Mathew declined despite Garrison's public insistence. Word of the affair reached Joseph Henry Lumpkin, chairman of the Georgia State Temperance Society, who had invited Mathew to address the state temperance convention. Despite his insistence that temperance was his mission, Mathew's acknowledgement of his abolition sentiments led Lumpkin to withdraw his invitation to address the convention. Nonetheless, Mathew did successfully tour the South.

During the antebellum era the temperance message was spread widely through the printed word. Weekly and monthly journals appeared devoted solely to temperance, while many religious periodicals carried news of the reform movement. Songs, poems, tracts, addresses, essays, sermons, and stories found their way into print, and temperance literature became a common part of the cultural landscape. Fiction like Timothy Shay Arthur's Ten Nights in a Bar-Room, and What I saw There (1854), portrayed the pain and shame experienced by drunkards and their families, as well as the joy of a life redeemed from demon rum. Temperance was trumpeted as the means to both social and domestic tranquility and individual economic advancement.

The ATS was among the first of voluntary benevolent reform organizations of the antebellum era to admit women, who participated in significant numbers. Women both joined men's societies and formed their own auxiliaries. According to the ideology of the day, woman's presumed superior moral influence, exercised mainly in the domestic sphere, added moral weight to the temperance cause. Also, women along with children were the main victims of alcoholic excess in the form of domestic violence and economic deprivation.

From Moral to Legal Reform

By the late 1830s some temperance reformers were ready to abandon moral suasion (urging individuals to abstinence by personal choice) in favor of legal suasion (employing the coercion of law). In 1838 and 1839 temperance workers circulated petitions asking state legislatures to change license laws regulating liquor traffic. Some petitions sought to prohibit liquor sales in less-than-specified quantities ranging from one to twenty gallons. Others sought local option laws allowing communities to regulate liquor sales. While petition campaigns occurred in most states, they were usually unsuccessful.

After the revival of temperance interest in the 1840s, a second prohibition effort occurred in the next decade. The state of Maine, under the efforts of the merchant Neal Dow, passed a prohibitory statute in 1851 outlawing the manufacture and sale of intoxicants. The Maine Law became a model for state campaigns throughout the country. During the early years of the 1850s temperance was one of the issues along with nativism, slavery, and the demise of the Whig Party that colored state political campaigns. A number of states passed prohibitory laws, though most were declared unconstitutional or repealed by 1857. Despite the failure of these efforts, temperance had proven the most widespread reform of the antebellum era.

Following the Civil War, the Prohibition Party was formed in Chicago in 1869, and began nominating presidential candidates in 1872, though it languished in the shadow of the major parties. Perhaps more important was the emergence of greater involvement of women in the temperance cause with the appearance of the Woman'S Christian Temperance Union in 1874. Annual per capita consumption of absolute alcohol had dropped sharply during the 1830s and 1840s and remained relatively stable at one to two gallons through most of the second half of the century. As America shifted from a rural to urban culture, drinking patterns shifted as well, away from whiskey to beer, a more urban beverage, now readily available owing to technological developments like pasteurization and refrigeration. Saloons became familiar fixtures of the urban landscape, and for temperance workers, the symbol of alcohol's evil. The WCTU, largely a collection of Protestant women, adopted a confrontational strategy, marching in groups to the saloon and demanding that it close. Under the leadership of Frances Willard, who led the organization for two decades, the WCTU embraced a wide variety of reforms, including woman's suffrage, believing that only by empowering women in the public sphere could alcohol be eliminated and the home protected. The WCTU became the largest temperance and largest women's organization prior to 1900.

Building on the women's efforts to keep the alcohol issue before the public, the Anti-Saloon League was formed by evangelical Protestant men in 1895. Attacking the saloon was its method; its aim was a dry society. The Anti-Saloon League worked through evangelical denominations, winning statewide victories over the next two decades. Its crowning success was the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919, ushering in the Prohibition era that ran from 1920 to 1933.

Bibliography

Blocker, Jack S., Jr. American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform. Boston: Twayne, 1989.

Bordin, Ruth. Women and Temperance: The Quest for Power and Liberty, 1873–1900. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981.

Dannenbaum, Jed. Drink and Disorder: Temperance Reform in Cincinnati from the Washingtonian Revival to the WCTU. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984.

Hampel, Robert L. Temperance and Prohibition in Massachusetts, 1813–1852. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1982.

Krout, John Allen. The Origins of Prohibition. New York: Knopf, 1925.

Rorabaugh, W. J. The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Tyrrell, Ian R. Sobering Up: From Temperance to Prohibition in Antebellum America, 1800–1860. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979.

A movement in the United States to moderate or elimi- nate the consumption of alcoholic beverages.

The temperance movement in the United States first became a national crusade in the early nineteenth century. An initial source of the movement was a groundswell of popular religion that focused on abstention from alcohol. Evangelical preachers of various Christian denominations denounced drinking alcohol as a sin. People who drank, they claimed, lost their faith in God and ceased to observe the teachings of Christ.

Other supporters of the first temperance movement objected to alcohol's destructive effects on individuals, communities, and the nation as a whole. According to these activists, the consumption of alcohol was responsible for many personal and societal problems, including unemployment, absenteeism in the workplace, and physical violence. Scores of short stories and books published in the mid-nineteenth century described in dramatic detail the abuse suffered by the families of alcoholics. Alcoholics were characterized as dangerous to themselves, their families, and even their nation's security. In the words of temperance advocate Lyman Beecher, a drunk electorate would "dig the grave of our liberties and entomb our glory."

The temperance movement was marked by an undercurrent of ethnic and religious hostility. Some of the first advocates were people of Anglo-Saxon heritage who associated alcohol with the growing number of Catholic immigrants from Ireland and the European continent. Supposedly, the Catholics were loud and boisterous as a result of too much drinking.

Most of the first temperance advocates were sincerely concerned for the welfare of others, however, and were not motivated by such faulty perceptions. The public's rate of alcohol consumption was, in fact, increasing steadily during the nineteenth century, and the reformers saw the banishment of alcohol not as a punishment but as necessary to an orderly, safe, and prosperous society. Despite its good intentions, the first movement splintered. The largest rift occurred between a minority of abolitionists, who favored the promotion of total abstinence from alcohol, and the majority of reformers, who favored only abstinence from hard liquor.

Although it lacked cohesion, the first temperance movement yielded some legislative reforms. In 1846 Maine became the first state to enact a law prohibiting liquor consumption. Twelve other states followed suit, but the laws were difficult to enforce, and public support for the laws quickly waned. By 1868 Maine was the only state left with a liquor prohibition law, and the temperance movement appeared to have come and gone.

Groups such as the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and the Anti-Saloon League were at the forefront of the onslaught on alcohol. Members of these groups spoke publicly in favor of Prohibition and lobbied elected officials for laws banning the consumption of alcohol. Some of the more active members disrupted business at saloons and liquor stores. One of the most visible prohibitionists, Carry Nation, used a hatchet to smash liquor bottles and break furniture in saloons.

In the 1870s some prohibitionists began to form political parties and nominate candidates for public office. Leaders in the so-called Progressive movement were instrumental in the resurgence of the temperance movement. The Progressives called for sweeping governmental controls in response to perceived social crises, and they began to promote the abolition of alcohol as part of a plan to clean up cities and eliminate poverty. By the time World War I began in 1914, an increasing number of politicians were advocating a ban on alcohol, and the conservation efforts for the war gave the temperance movement additional momentum.

Congress enacted the Lever Act of 1917 (40 Stat. 276) to outlaw the use of grain in the manufacture of alcoholic beverages, and many state and local governments passed laws prohibiting the distribution and consumption of alcohol. Two years later, the states ratified the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States. The complete ban on alcohol was put into effect by the Volstead Act (41 Stat. 305). President Woodrow Wilson vetoed the act, but Congress overrode the veto and the United States became officially dry in January 1920.

The effect of Prohibition was to drive drinking underground. Saloons were replaced by speakeasies, hidden drinking places that, in some areas, were tolerated by local police. The more enterprising individuals set up homemade stills to produce alcohol for their own consumption. Others turned to bootlegging, or the illegal sale of alcohol. Prices on the black market were markedly higher than they had been prior to Prohibition, and gangsters used violence to acquire and maintain control over the highly profitable bootlegging business. Bootlegging was so profitable because so many people wanted to drink alcohol. Federal, state, and local law enforcement officials found themselves at war not only with gangsters, but with the general public as well.

Popular support for Prohibition quickly waned after the Eighteenth Amendment was passed, but it took thirteen years to end it. Herbert Hoover, who served as president from 1929 to 1933, supported Prohibition, calling it "an experiment noble in purpose." Hoover was defeated in his bid for reelection, however, and in 1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt called for an amendment to the Volstead Act that would legalize light wine and beer consumption. The bill passed quickly and received widespread public support, and Congress set about the task of repealing Prohibition. On December 5, 1933, the Twenty-first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, and the "noble experiment" was dismantled.

See: Capone, Alphonse; organized crime.

See also: Prohibition and Teetotalism

"Temperance" redirects here. For other uses, see Temperance (disambiguation).

A cartoon from Australia.

A temperance movement is a social movement against the use of alcohol. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence, or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation.

Contents 1 United States 1.1 Temperance Education 1.2 Anti-Saloon League 1.3 Temperance organizations 2 United Kingdom 3 Ireland 4 New Zealand 5 Canada 6 Sri Lanka 7 See also 8 References 9 Bibliography 10 External links

United States

Main article: Prohibition in the United States

As the American Revolution approached, economic change and urbanization were accompanied by increasing poverty, ordinances were relaxed and alcohol problems increased dramatically. Apparently influenced by Dr. Benjamin Rush's widely discussed belief, about 200 farmers^{[citation needed]} in a Connecticut community formed a temperance association in 1789. Similar associations were formed in Virginia in 1800 and New York State in 1808. Within the next decade, other temperance organizations were formed in eight states, some being state-wide organizations.

The future looked bright for the young movement, which advocated temperance or levelness rather than abstinence. But many of the leaders overestimated their strength; they expanded their activities and took positions on of the Sabbath, and other moral issues. They became involved in political in-fighting and by the early 1820s their movement stalled.

But some leaders persevered in pressing their cause forward. Americans such as Lyman Beecher, who was a Connecticut minister, had started to lecture his fellow citizens against all use of liquor in 1825. The American Temperance Society was formed in 1826 and benefited from a renewed interest in religion and morality. Within 12 years it claimed more than 8,000 local groups and over 1,500,000 members. By 1839, 18 temperance journals were being published. Simultaneously, many Protestant churches were beginning to promote temperance.

Temperance Education

In 1880 the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) established a Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction in Schools and Colleges, with Mary Hunt as National Superintendent. She believed that voters "must first be convinced that alcohol and kindred narcotics are by nature outlaws, before they will outlaw them.^{[citation needed]}" Elizabeth D. Gelok was one of the women that taught Scientific Temperance Instruction at the Schools and Colleges for the students. She was also a member of the WCTU along with Mary Hunt. She was one of the most well-known a Scientific Temperance Instruction teachers^{[citation needed]} Elizabeth decided to use legislation to coerce the moral suasion of students, who would be the next generation of voters. This gave birth to the idea of the compulsory Scientific Temperance Instruction Movement.

By the turn of the century, Mary Hunt’s efforts along with Elizabeth's and the other teacher's proved to be highly successful. Virtually every state, the District of Columbia, and all United States possessions had strong legislation mandating that all students receive anti-alcohol education.^{[citation needed]} Furthermore, the implementation of this legislation was closely monitored down to the classroom level by legions of determined and vigilant WCTU members throughout the nation.

Temperance writers viewed the WCTU's program of compulsory temperance education as a major factor leading to the establishment of National Prohibition with passage of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Other knowledgeable observers, including the U.S. Commissioner of Education, agreed.^{[citation needed]}

Because of the correlation between drinking and domestic violence -- many drunken husbands abused family members-- the temperance movement existed alongside various women's rights and other movements, including the Progressive movement, and often the same activists were involved in all of the above. Many notable voices of the time, ranging from Lucy Webb Hayes to Susan B. Anthony, were active in the movement. In Canada, Nellie McClung was a longstanding advocate of temperance. As with most social movements, there was a gamut of activists running from violent (Carrie Nation) to mild (Neal S. Dow).

Many former abolitionists joined the temperance movement and it was also strongly supported by the second that began to emerge after 1915.^{[citation needed]}

For decades prohibition was seen by temperance movement zealots and their followers as the almost magical solution to the nation's poverty, crime, violence, and other ills. On the eve of prohibition the invitation to a church celebration in New York said "Let the church bells ring and let there be great rejoicing, for an enemy has been overthrown and victory crowns the forces of righteousness."^{[citation needed]} Jubilant with victory, some in the WCTU announced that, having brought Prohibition to the United States, it would now go forth to bring the blessing of enforced abstinence to the rest of the world.

The famous evangelist Billy Sunday staged a mock funeral for John Barleycorn and then preached on the benefits of prohibition. "The reign of tears is over," he asserted. "The slums will soon be only a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs."^{[citation needed]} Since alcohol was to be banned and since it was seen as the cause of most, if not all, crime, some communities sold their jails.^{[citation needed]} One sold its jail to a farmer who converted it into a combination pig and chicken house while another converted its jail into a tool house.^{[citation needed]}

Anti-Saloon League

The Anti-Saloon League, under the leadership of Wayne Wheeler stressed political results and utilized pressure politics. It did not demand that politicians change their drinking habits, only their votes in the legislature. Other organizations like the Prohibition Party and the WCTU lost influence to the League. The League mobilized its religious coalition to pass state (and local) legislation. Energized by the anti-German sentiment during World War I, in 1918 it achieved the main goal of passage of the 18th Amendment establishing National Prohibition.

Temperance organizations

Temperance organizations of the United States played an essential role in bringing about ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution establishing national prohibition of alcohol. They included:

• the American Issue Publishing House
• the American Temperance Society
• the Anti-Saloon League
• the British Women's Temperance Association
• the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America
• the Committee of Fifty (1893)
• the Daughters of Temperance
• the Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction
• the Flying Squadron of America
• the Independent Order of Good Templars
• the Knights of Father Matthew
• the Lincoln-Lee Legion
• the Methodist Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and Public Morals
• the National Temperance Society and Publishing House
• the Prohibition Party
• the Scientific Temperance Federation
• the Sons of Temperance
• the Templars of Honor and Temperance
• the Abstinence Society
• the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (active)
• the National Temperance Council
• the World League Against Alcoholism (a pro-prohibition organization)

There was often considerable overlap in membership in these organizations, as well as in leadership. Prominent temperance leaders in the United States included Bishop James Cannon, Jr., James Black, Ernest Cherrington, Neal S. Dow, Mary Hunt, William E. Johnson (known as "Pussyfoot" Johnson), Carrie Nation, Howard Hyde Russell, John St. John, Billy Sunday, Father Mathew, Andrew Volstead and Wayne Wheeler.

United Kingdom

Band of Hope Banner from Cornwall.^[1]

In March 1832 Joseph Livesey started his Temperance Movement in Preston, requiring followers to sign a pledge of total abstinence^[2]. The term Teetotal is derived from a speech by John Turner, a follower of Livesey, in Preston in 1833^[3]. The British Association for the Promotion of Temperance was established by 1835.^[4] Within a few years the Temperance movement was advocating complete teetotalism rather than moderation.

In 1847 the Band of Hope was founded in Leeds, to save working class children from the perils of drink. The members had to pledge to abstain "from all liquors of an intoxicating quality, whether ale, porter, wine or ardent spirits, except as medicine"^[5]

In 1853, inspired by the Maine law in the USA, the United Kingdom Alliance led by John B. Gough was formed aimed at promoting a similar law prohibiting the sale of alcohol in the UK. This hard-line group of prohibitionists was opposed by other temperance organisations who preferred moral persuasion to a legal ban. This division in the ranks limited the effectiveness of the temperance movement as a whole. The impotence of legislation in this field was demonstrated when the Sale of Beer Act 1854 which restricted Sunday opening hours had to be repealed, following widespread rioting. In 1859 a prototype prohibition bill was overwhelmingly defeated in the House of Commons.^[6]

Despite this setback Quakers and the Salvation Army (founded in 1865) still lobbied parliament to restrict alcohol sales. Nonconformists were active with large numbers of Baptist and Congregational ministers being teetotal. In Wales Lady Llanover closed all the public houses on her estate and was an outspoken critic of the evils of drink.

The League of the Cross was a Catholic total abstinence organisation founded in 1873 by Cardinal Manning. In 1876 the British Women's Temperance Association was formed to persuade men to stop drinking and in 1884 the National Temperance Federation, associated with the Liberal Party was founded. ^[7]

The temperance movement received an unexpected boost due to state intervention when the Liberal government passed the Defence of the Realm Act in 1914 at the beginning of the First World War. According to the provisions of this act pub hours were licensed, beer was watered down and was subject to a penny a pint extra tax.^[8]This situation was maintained by the subsequent establishment of the State Management Scheme in 1916 which nationalised breweries and pubs in certain areas of Britain where armaments manufacture was taking place.

However in the end the dismal example of the complete failure of National Prohibition in America in the 1920s put paid to any remote chance that the temperance lobby would succeed in achieving its aims in the UK^[9]

Mr Fitzpatrick's in Rawtenstall is the last remaining temperance bar in the UK and still to this day provides the region with non-alcoholic beverages and cordials to refresh and invigorate the mind and body; the labels of their bottles bears one of the last temperance pledges to be signed in the area.

Ireland

In Ireland, a Catholic priest Theobald Matthew persuaded thousands of people to sign the pledge, therefore establishing the Teetotal Abstinence Society in 1838.

Many years later, in 1898 James Cullen founded the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association in response of the fading influence of the original temperance pledge.

New Zealand

In New Zealand at the end of the 19th Century it became apparent that problems associated with settlement, such as larrikinism and drunkenness, were growing in society. Increasing urbanisation heightened public awareness of the gap between social aspirations and reality of the young colony. Generalisations from newspapers, visiting speakers & politicians in the 1890s allowed development of large public overreaction and fervour to the magnitude of the problem of alcohol. ^[10] It became the firm opinion of a number of prominent New Zealanders that the colony’s problems were associated with alcohol.^{[citation needed]}

Despite the efforts of the temperance movement, the rate of convictions for drunkenness remained constant in New Zealand.^{[citation needed]} The rapid increase in the number of convictions for public drunkenness was more a reflection of the growing population rather than social denigration.^{[citation needed]}

The pressure applied from the temperance movement crippled New Zealand’s young wine industry post World War I.^{[citation needed]}

In 1834, the first recorded temperance meeting was held in the Bay of Islands (Northland). ^[11] The 1860’s saw the foundation of a large number of temperance societies. ^[12] Many provinces passed licensing ordinances giving residents the right to secure, by petition, the cancellation or granting of liquor licenses in their district. ^[13] The Licensing Act of 1873 allowed the prohibition of liquor sales in districts if petitioned by two-thirds of residents. ^[14] In 1886 a national body called the New Zealand Alliance for Suppression and Abolition of the Liquor Traffic was formed pushing for control of the liquor trade as a democratic right. ^[15] In 1893 the Alcoholic Liquors Sale Control Act aligned licensing districts with parliamentary electorates. ^[10] In 1894 Clutha electorate voted ‘no-license’ and in 1902 Mataura and Ashburton followed suit. In 1905 Invercargill, Oamaru and Greylynn voted ‘no-license’. In 1908 Bruce, Wellington suburbs, Wellington South, Masterton, Ohinemuri and Eden voted ‘no-license' and many wine makers were denied the right to sell their wines locally and were forced out of business.

In 1911 the Liquor Amendment Act provided for national poll on prohibition and the New Zealand Viticultural Association was formed to “save this fast decaying industry by initiation of such legislation as will restore confidence among those who after long years of waiting have almost lost confidence in the justice of the Government. Through harsh laws and withdrawal of government support and encouragement that had been promised, a great industry had been practically ruined.”^{[citation needed]}

In 1914 sensing a growing feeling of wowserism, Prime Minister Massey lambasted Dalmatian wine as "a degrading, demoralizing and sometimes maddening drink."

On April 10, 1919 a national poll for continuance was carried with 51%, due only to votes of Expeditionary Force soldiers returning from Europe. ^[16] On December 7 a second poll failed by 3363 votes to secure prohibition over continuance or state purchase and control of liquor.^{[citation needed]} Restrictive legislation was introduced on sale of liquor, and by 1928 the percentage of prohibition votes begin to decline.^{[citation needed]}

Canada

See Prohibition in Canada

Sri Lanka

The Temperance movement in Sri Lanka was motivated by Buddhism. It was also a front line organisation in the National Independence Movement. Most of the early officers of the society were pioneers in gaining independence. "The Temperance Movement was identified as the foundation for the independence struggle and many were killed,". The "Sura Virodhi Vyaparaya" against alcoholism launched by Srimath Anagarika Dharmapala in 1895, was seen by the British rulers as a direct attack on their regime which rented out taverns to get revenue for government coffers. At that time there were 2,038 taverns. After the Temperance Movement agitation there was a drastic drop to 190. ^[17]

See also

• Susan B. Anthony
• Christianity and alcohol
• Coffee Palace
• Daisy Douglas Barr
• Diocletian Lewis
• Edith Smith Davis
• Eliza Thompson
• International Organisation of Good Templars
• Mary Hunt
• Prohibition
• Purley Baker
• Teetotalism
• The Hallelujah Trail
• Thomas Sewall
• Washington movement
• Wedding of the Weddings
• William Hogarth's "Gin Lane"

References

1. ^ The Band of Hope Banner, illustrated, is in the Heritage Centre at the village of Constantine in Cornwall
2. ^ Joseph Livesey— the poor people's friend
3. ^ AskOxford: teetotal
4. ^ Harrison, Brian (1971). Drink & the Victorians, The Temperance Question in England 1815-1872. Faber and Faber. 
5. ^ Nick Brownlee (2002) This is Alcohol: 99
6. ^ Nick Brownlee (2002) This is Alcohol: 99-100
7. ^ Sparatacus.schoolnet
8. ^ Nick Brownlee (2002) This is Alcohol: 106
9. ^ Nick Brownlee (2002) This is Alcohol: 107
10. ^ ^{a b} 1893 Act
11. ^ The temperance movement in New Zealand
12. ^ ibid
13. ^ ibid
14. ^ Licensing Act of 1873, New Zealand
15. ^ New Zealand Alliance
16. ^ New Zealand referendum, 1919
17. ^ Sri Lankan Sunday Times article

Bibliography

• Jack S. Blocker, David M. Fahey, and Ian R. Tyrrell eds. Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia 2 Vol. (2003)
• Bordin, Ruth. Woman and Temperance: The Quest for Power and Liberty, 1873-1900 1981
• Ernest Cherrington, Evolution of Prohibition in the United States (1926). by dry leader
• Ernest Cherrington, ed., Standard Encyclopaedia of the Alcohol Problem 6 volumes (1925-1930), comprehensive international coverage to late 1920s
• Clark; Norman H. Deliver Us From Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition. W.W. Norton , 1976. supports prohibition
• Dannenbaum, Jed. "The Origins of Temperance Activism and Militancy among American Women", Journal of Social History vol. 14 (1981): 235-36.
• Heath, Dwight B. (ed.) International Handbook on Alcohol and Culture. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995.a
• Harrison, Brian Drink & the Victorians, the Temperance question in England 1815-1872, Faber and Faber, 1971
• Jensen, Richard. The Winning of the Midwest, Social and Political Conflict, 1888-1896 University of Chicago Press, 1971
• McConnell, D. W. Temperance Movements. In: Seligman, Edwin R. A., and Johnson, Alvin (eds.) Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. , 1933.
• Odegard, Peter H. Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League. 1928.
• Seabury, Olive The Carlisle State Management Scheme: A 60 year experiment in Regulation of the Liquor Trade, Bookcase Carlisle, 2007
• Sheehan, Nancy M. The WCTU and education: Canadian-American illustrations. Journal of the Midwest History of Education Society, 1981, P, 115-133.
• Smith, Rebecca. The Temperance Movement and Class Struggle in Vicorian England. Loyola University, 1993.
• Timberlake, James H. Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963.
• Tracy, Sarah W. and Caroline Jean Acker; Altering American Consciousness: The History of Alcohol and Drug Use in the United States, 1800-2000 U of Massachusetts Press, 2004
• Tyrrell, Ian; Woman's World/Woman's Empire: The Woman's Christian Temperance Union in International Perspective, 1880-1930 U of North Carolina Press, 1991

External links

• DRINK AND THE VICTORIANS: A HISTORY OF THE BRITISH TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT (ca. 1200 items) is housed in the Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Stanford University Libraries
• In the South (entry in the New Georgia Encyclopedia)
• Temperance news page - Alcohol and Drugs History Society
• Temperance Town, a suburb in Cardiff, Wales, where alcohol was banned
• Mr Fitzpatrick's Cordials and Soft Drinks, The UKs Last Temperance Bar
• NBC News interview with CUNY's Josh Brown on the Temperance Movement

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