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CP US History Unit 2: Roots of American Character

How can individuals have an impact on the nation’s problems?

Activity Card

Activity: Temperance Movement

Read the Context Setting Car. Then use the information on your Resource Cards to talk about the

discussion questions.

Examine the TASK and complete the project to meet all of the Task Evaluation Criteria

Discussion Questions:

1. What was the situation with alcohol consumption in the early 1800s?

2. Who was concerned that American consumption was a problem? (individuals & groups)

3. What were the negative effects of excessive alcoholic consumption on society (according to

the reformers)

4. What were the approaches/solutions that the temperance groups suggested? Was their

emphasis on government intervention, ie: regulation/laws or on self-restraint?

5. How successful was the Temperance movement at this time?

6. How can individuals have an impact on the nation’s problems?

Task

Create a board game showing the pitfalls/dangers of “Demon Rum” versus the salutary effects of

moderation or “tee-totaling”

Task Evaluation Criteria

Your completed assignment must meet all of the following criteria:

oard game is clearly laid out into the rationale presented in the research 2)

its possible effects on developed countries, and 3) its possible effects on

family life.

Board game includes at least one short-term and at least one long-term

effect each the pitfalls and the salutary.

Board game demonstrates a clear understanding of the who, what, when,

where, and why of the research.

Board game is engaging and playable in tracing the event and its effects

through time and place.

Board game makes use of three or more of the following: color, texture,

symbols, scale, and/or perspective.


Temperance Movement RESOURCE CARD ONE - 1

Temperance Movement

The production and consumption of alcohol in the United States rose markedly in the early 1800s. The

temperance movement emerged as a backlash against the rising popularity of drinking. Founded in 1826,

the American Temperance Society advocated total abstinence from alcohol. Many advocates saw

drinking as an immoral and irreligious practice that caused poverty or mental instability. Others saw it

as a male indulgence that harmed women and children who often suffered abuse at drunkards’ hands.

During the 1830s, an increasing number of workingmen joined the movement in concern over the ill

effects of alcohol on job performance. By 1835, about 5,000 temperance societies were affiliated with

the American Temperance Society. Owing largely to this association’s impact, consumption of liquor

began to decrease in the late 1830s and early 1840s, and many states passed restrictions or bans on the

sale of alcohol.

The temperance movement was the longest-lasting and most broad-based social reform movement in the United States. It was also, in many ways, successful: by the late 19th century, in the decades before Prohibition, the drinking habits of Americans were radically changed. Activism in the movement crossed gender, race, class, religion, and age barriers, and was connected to both the antislavery and woman suffrage reforms. This exhibition traces the temperance movement’s development from moral persuasion to legal coercion, from Dr. Benjamin Rush’s moral thermometer in the late 18th century to the formation of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union in the late 19th

Grappling with the Monster, or the Curse and the Cure of Strong Drink.

New York: John W. Lovell Company, 1877

Arguments The campaign against drunkenness made social sense in the changing economic climate. At a time when families increasingly depended on male wages, drunkenness could mean the loss of income and even of employment. The fear of poverty was intertwined with the realization that family violence was often linked to drinking. Both reinforced the religious message that drinking was a sin.


Temperance Movement RESOURCE CARD TWO - 2

When Philadelphian Dr. Benjamin Rush published his "moral thermometer" in the late 18th century, he set the American temperance movement into motion. The thermometer was a visual depiction of the horrors that awaited drunkards, and it placed both moderate drinkers and abstainers on the moral high ground. The earliest printed works of the movement focused on alcohol’s bad influence on health,

including the immediate effects of drunkenness (like vomiting and headache) and the perceived long-term effects of chronic drinking (like delirium tremens, spontaneous human combustion, madness, and

death). When the movement blossomed in the early 1830s, medical arguments made up a powerful element in encouraging temperance, and many doctors belonged to temperance organizations.

On Resource Cards 4A and 4B

The pair of 1855 illustrations, "Tree of Temperance" and "Tree of Intemperance," are rich with symbolic and literal depictions of the consequences of each lifestyle. Discuss the gender stereotypes portrayed in these temperance cartoons. Identify the symbolic aspects in each of the "Tree" cartoons. Why might visual portrayals of the consequences of each lifestyle be important?

"Intemperance is the sin of our land," proclaimed evangelical minister, Lyman Beecher, "and if anything shall defeat the hopes of the world, which hang upon our experiment of civil liberty, it is that river of fire."

While Beecher pointed to drunkenness as the national sin.


Temperance Movement RESOURCE CARD FOUR A


Temperance Movement RESOURCE CARD FOUR B

Jane E. Stebbins. Fifty Years History of the Temperance Cause. Hartford: L. Stebbins, 1874


Temperance Movement

The temperance pledge came in many forms. It was always a promise to be temperate in drinking, but sometimes alcoholic beverages were allowed for medicinal purposes or on special days such as the 4th of July (a popular drinking holiday). There was even a special women’s pledge promising not to use alcohol in cooking. People signed individual and group pledges swearing never to drink again, but it is clear that the pledge was sometimes made fairly casually – especially by politicians hoping to win dry votes. Personal pledges might be hung on the wall as a, sign of pride or as a reminder to keep the promise.

American Temperance Union Pledge We whose names are hereunto annexed, believing that the use of intoxicating liquor, as a beverage, is not only needless, but hurtful to the social, civil, and religious interests of men: that it tends to form intemperate appetites and habits, and that while it is continued, the evils of intemperance can never be done away: do therefore agree that we will not use it or traffic in it: that we will not provide it as an article of entertainment or for persons in our employment: and that in all suitable ways, we will discountenance the use of it throughout the community.

Pledge for Children I do hereby pledge myself to abstain entirely and forever from the use of all intoxicating liquor as a drink.

Pledge of the Pennsylvania Society for Discouraging the Use of Ardent Spirits The subscribers, duly impressed with a sense of the numerous physical and moral evils arising from intemperance, do hereby mutually pledge themselves to abstain from the use of ardent spirits, except as a medicine prescribed by a competent physician; recognizing WATER, as the legitimate and most salutary drink for all men; and viewing drunkenness, whether resulting from the use of ardent spirits, fermented or vinous liquors, as equally reprehensible, and subjecting any signer of this pledge to expulsion from this Association.

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