In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, various factors contributed to an epidemic of
alcoholism that went hand-in-hand with spousal abuse, family neglect, and chronic unemployment. Americans who used to drink lightly alcoholic beverages, like
cider "from the crack of dawn to the crack of dawn" began ingesting far more alcohol as they drank more of strong, cheap beverages like
rum (in the colonial period) and
whiskey (in the post-Revolutionary period). Popular pressure for cheap and plentiful alcohol led to relaxed
ordinances on alcohol sales. The temperance movement was born with
Benjamin Rush's 1784 tract,
An Inquiry Into the Effects of Ardent Spirits Upon the Human Body and Mind, which judged the excessive use of alcohol injurious to physical and psychological health. Influenced by Rush's
Inquiry, about 200 farmers in a
Connecticut community formed a temperance association in 1789 to ban the making of whiskey. Similar associations were formed in
Virginia in 1800, and
New York State in 1808. Over the next decade, other temperance organizations were formed in eight states, some being statewide organizations. The young movement allowed for temperate or moderate drinking. Many leaders of the movement expanded their activities and took positions on observance of the
Sabbath and other moral issues, and by the early 1820s political in-fighting had stalled the movement. Some leaders persevered in pressing their cause forward. Americans such as
Lyman Beecher, who was a Connecticut minister, had started to lecture their 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 1,250,000 members. By 1839, 18 temperance journals were being published. Simultaneously, some
Protestant and
Catholic church leaders were beginning to promote temperance. The movement split along two lines in the late 1830s: between moderates allowing some drinking and radicals demanding total abstinence, and between voluntarists relying on moral suasion alone and prohibitionists promoting laws to restrict or ban alcohol. Radicals and prohibitionists dominated many of the largest temperance organizations after the 1830s, and temperance eventually became synonymous with prohibition. In 1838, temperance activists pushed the Massachusetts legislature to pass a law restricting the sale of alcohol in quantities less than fifteen gallons. In the 1840s, numerous states passed laws allowing local voters to determine whether or not liquor licences would be issued in their towns or counties. In the 1850s, 13 states and territories passed statewide prohibitory laws (known as "Maine Laws"). Throughout this period, temperance reformers also tended to support Sunday laws that restricted the sale of alcohol on Sundays.
Temperance During Civil War The
American Civil War dealt the movement a crippling blow. Temperance groups in the South were then weaker than their Northern counterparts and did not pass any statewide prohibition laws, and the few prohibition laws in the North were repealed by the war's end. Both sides in the war made alcohol sales a part of the war effort by taxing brewers and distillers to finance much of the conflict. The issue of slavery crowded out temperance and temperance groups petered out until they found new life in the 1870s. During the American Civil War, concerns over alcohol consumption grew and contributed to the temperance movement. Whiskey was widely distributed to soldiers as a "stimulant," but its use often led to drunkenness, insubordination, and disciplinary problems. Some officers prohibited alcohol in their camps, noting improved order and health among their soldiers, while camps without restrictions reported higher rates of disorder. The temperance movement influenced soldiers by discouraging them from even considering drinking. One soldier, raised in a prohibition-supporting town, reportedly poured his whiskey ration on the ground rather than consume it. Disorder and disobedience helped turn temperance into a defining trait of honorable, disciplined service: in one example, a soldier, in a drunken fit, shot a major and was later executed, his intoxication claiming two lives outside of battle. Critics often blamed both drunkenness and those who sold liquor to soldiers, describing alcohol merchants as undermining the nation. The next significant temperance drama to debut was titled ''Fifteen Years of a Drunkard's Life
, written by Douglas Jerrold in 1841. As the movement began to grow and prosper, these dramas became more popular among the general public. The Drunkard'' by W.H. Smith premiered in 1841 in Boston, running for 144 performances before being produced at
Barnum's American Museum on
lower Broadway. The play was wildly popular and is often credited with the entrance of the temperance narrative into mainstream American theatre. It continued to be a staple of New York's theatre scene all the way until 1875.
The Drunkard follows the typical format of a temperance drama: the main character has an alcohol-induced downfall, and he restores his life from disarray once he denounces drinking for good at the play's end. Temperance drama continued to grow as a genre of theatre, fostered by the advent of the railroad as a form of transportation. This enabled theatre companies to be much more mobile, traveling from city to city. Temperance drama would even reach as far as the West Coast, as
David Belasco's adaptation of
Émile Zola's novel
Drink premiered at the Baldwin Theatre in San Francisco in 1879.
Early victories in Maine Maine was an early hotbed of the temperance movement. The world's first
Total Abstinence Society was formed in
Portland in 1815, and a statewide temperance group formed in 1834. These groups won a major victory in 1838 when they pressured the state legislature to pass the
Fifteen Gallon Law, which prohibited the sale of spirits in quantities of less than that amount. Its practical effect was to make hard liquor available to the wealthy, who were the only ones who could afford such quantities. It was repealed within two years. However, in 1851 the so-called
Maine law passed, which banned the production and sale of alcoholic beverages. Thus Maine became the first "dry" state. However, the law's exception for "medicinal, mechanical and manufacturing purposes" meant that liquor was still available for some. == Second Wave Temperance: 1872–1893 ==