[150 years ago this week, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union was founded at a national convention in Cleveland. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of key temperance histories, leading up to a weekend post on that 1874 convention!]
On
takeaways from a trio of temperance reformers across the 19th
century.
1)
Sylvester
Graham (1794-1851): As that hyperlinked article argues, Graham’s
temperance activism was just one small part of his truly multi-layered efforts
for health and wellness reform. But my older son dressed up as and interpreted
Graham for an APUSH project earlier this year, and in his honor (and in tribute
to Graham’s most enduring legacy, the undeniably tasty Graham
Cracker) I wanted to include the quirky and influential Graham in this
post. Moreover, Graham did hold a position for years with one of the
organizations I highlighted yesterday, the Philadelphia Temperance Society, so
he did see alcohol abstinence as an important part of his overall
health reforms. While analyzing the longitudinal history of the temperance
movement over these 400 years is one important way to think about this issue,
it’s equally worthwhile to connect each specific moment latitudinally to other
elements of its era and society, as Graham’s multi-faceted efforts remind us.
2)
Neal Dow: But some
reformers did laser-focus on temperance throughout their lives and careers, and
while Portland,
Maine’s Neal Dow (1804-1897) did other important work as
well—including with the Underground Railroad and as a Civil War Brigadier
General—temperance was the through-line, leading to his nickname as the “Father
of Prohibition.” Active in the movement since his early 20s, it was with a pair
of closely linked mid-century elections that he really took his efforts to the
next level: he was elected president of the Maine Temperance Union in 1850 and
then mayor of Portland in 1851. Dow saw his political role as an extension of his
movement activism, to the point where in 1855 he ordered state
militia members to open fire on rioters who opposed his “Maine Law,” the
first in the nation to prohibit all alcohol. Dow even tried to take those
political goals truly nationwide, running for President in 1880 as the nominee of
the Prohibition Party. In those and other ways, the political
history of prohibition is inseparable from the career of Neal Dow.
3)
Carrie (sometimes
Carry) Nation (1846-1911): While Dow did order that moment of militia violence,
his own activisms remained more on the organizational and legal levels, as was
the case with the 19th and early 20th century temperance
movement as a whole. But all social movements feature a variety of perspectives
and tactics, and not long after Dow’s presidential run the temperance movement
came to be dominated by a figure who preferred much more direct and violent
action. Believing herself called from God to oppose all things alcohol—“a bulldog
running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn’t like,” as she strikingly
put it—Nation’s activist weapon of choice was neither words nor laws,
but a literal weapon, the hatchet with which she attacked both liquor bottles
and the businesses that served them (leading to the nickname “Hatchet
Granny”). While Nation was part of the broader community of the
Anti-Saloon League about which I’ll write tomorrow, she was also profoundly and
powerfully individual, as were each of these influential temperance reformers.
Next temperance
histories tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think?
