Temperance movement
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.
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.
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.
[3]: 4 [4]: 36–37 As early as the 1790s, physician Benjamin Rush envisioned a disease-like syndrome caused by excessive drinking, the "symptoms" being moral and physical decay.
According to "Pompili, Maurizio et al",[citation needed] there is increasing evidence that, aside from the volume of alcohol consumed, the pattern of the drinking is relevant for health outcomes.
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.
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.
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.
[16][note 2] 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.
[15] With the Evangelical Protestant religious revival of the 1820s and 1830s, called the Second Great Awakening, social movements began aiming for a perfect society.
[26] The Pequot writer and minister William Apess (1798–1839) established the first formal Native American temperance society among the Maspee Indians on 11 October 1833.
In June 1830, the Millennial Harbinger quoted from a book "The Simplicity of Health", which strongly condemned the use of alcohol and tobacco, and the untempered consumption of meat, similar to the provisions in the Word of Wisdom revealed three years later.
According to Paul H. Peterson and Ronald W. Walker, Smith did not enforce abstinence from alcohol because he believed that it threatened individual choice and agency and that a requirement for the Latter Day Saints to comply would cause division in the church.
Grant, then president of the LDS church, officially called on the Latter-day Saints to strictly adhere to the Word of Wisdom, including complete abstinence from alcohol.
[4]: 30 As a response to rising social problems in urbanized areas, a stricter form of temperance emerged called teetotalism, which promoted the complete abstinence from alcoholic beverages, this time including wine and beer, not just ardent spirits.
They, however, differed from the Washingtonians through their closed rather than public meetings, fines, and membership qualifications, believing their methods were more effective in curbing men's alcohol addictions.
Gospel rescue missions or inebriate homes were created that allowed homeless drunkards a safe place to reform and learn to practice total abstinence while receiving food and shelter.
[36]: 602 The party was associated with the Independent Order of Good Templars, which entertained a universalist orientation, being more open to blacks and repentant alcoholics than most other organizations.
[70]: 163 Scholars have estimated that by 1900, one in ten Americans had signed a pledge to abstain from drinking,[71] as the temperance movement became the most well-organized lobby group of the time.
[77][78] The movement gained traction during the First World War, with President Wilson issuing sharp restrictions on the sale of alcohol in many combatant countries.
[88] Similarly, Finland introduced prohibition in 1919, but repealed it in 1932 after an upsurge in violent crime associated with criminal opportunism and the illegal liquor trade.
[44]: 28 The temperance movement started to wane in the 1930s, with prohibition being criticised as creating unhealthy drinking habits,[85] encouraging criminals and discouraging economic activity.
Also, statistical analysis has shown that the temperance movement during this time had a positive, but moderate, effect on later adult educational outcomes through providing a healthy pre-natal environment.
For example, in 2016, many women in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu blamed alcohol for societal ills, such as domestic violence, and thus took to the polls to elect a pro-prohibition leader.
[44]: 30 Through the influence of scientific theories on heredity, temperance proponents came to believe that alcohol problems were not just a personal concern, but caused later generations of people to "degenerate" as well.
Popular songwriters such as Susan McFarland Parkhurst, George Frederick Root, Henry Clay Work and Stephen C. Foster composed a number of these songs.
At a Chicago meeting of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Susan B. Anthony stated that women suffer the most from drunkenness.
Higher class women did not need to work because they could rely on their husbands' ability to support their families and they consequently had more leisure time to engage in organizations and associations that were affiliated with the temperance movement.
[108]: 11–12 The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) grew out of a spontaneous crusade against saloons and liquor stores that began in Ohio and spread throughout the Midwestern United States during the winter of 1873–1874.
The crusade consisted of over 32,000 women who stormed into saloons and liquor stores in order to disrupt business and stop the sales of alcohol.
