The International Organisation of Good Templars (IOGT; founded as the Independent Order of Good Templars), whose international body is known as Movendi International, is a fraternal organization which is part of the temperance movement, promoting abstinence from alcohol and other drugs.
It describes itself as "the premier global interlocutor for evidence-based policy measures and community-based interventions to prevent and reduce harm caused by alcohol and other drugs." It claims to be the largest worldwide community of non-governmental organisations with a mission to independently enlighten people around the world on a lifestyle free from alcohol and other drugs.
Founded in 1851, IOGT International works to promote the avoidance of alcohol and other drugs by supporting communities and societies around the world. Its constitution say this will lead to the liberation of peoples of the world, this leading to a richer, freer and more rewarding life.[2] The headquarters of IOGT International is in Stockholm.
History
The IOGT originated as one of a number of fraternal organizations for temperance or total abstinence founded in the 19th century and with a structure modeled on Freemasonry, using similar ritual and regalia. Unlike many, however, it admitted men and women equally, and also made no distinction by race.[3]
The IOGT named themselves after the Knights Templar, citing the legend that the original knights "drank sour milk, and also because they were fighting 'a great crusade' against 'this terrible vice' of alcohol."[4]
In 1850, in Utica, New York, Daniel Cady founded one such organization, the Knights of Jericho. In 1851, a lodge of it in Oriskany Falls (then known as Castor Hollow), a village near Utica, was visited by 13 members of another Utica group. Under the leadership of Wesley Bailey, it was decided that these two lodges form the Order of Good Templars. The motto of the renamed organization was "Friendship, Hope and Charity."
Over the next year, 14 additional lodges were established. By the summer of 1852, a convention was called in Utica to establish a Grand Lodge. During this, a dispute broke out between Wesley Bailey and Leverett Coon, who had established a lodge, Excelsior, in Syracuse. Coon left the meeting and his lodge supported his actions by seceding as the Independent Order of Good Templars, with the motto altered to "Faith, Hope and Charity." They shortly merged back, the resulting group continuing under the name Independent Order of Good Templars.
Small assembly building of the IOGT lodge in Vågå, Norway. Built 1908.
From 1900 onward, further groups were set up in the Netherlands, Burma, Nigeria and Panama.[5] In 1906, reflecting the International reach of the organisation the word "Independent" in its title, was replaced by "International."[6]
From its inception, the Independent Order of Good Templars "campaigned for prohibition, strove to provide social facilities that served non-alcoholic beverages, promoted education and self-help, and supported decent working conditions for working people."[4]
In an attempt to modernize its image the IOGT changed some of its titles and ritualistic features in the 1970s, the use of regalia and rituals began to diminish or were eliminated. In 1970, instead of "Order," the group became the International Organisation of Good Templars. The title of "Chief Templar" was changed to "President" and local units were given the option of calling themselves "Chapters" rather than "Lodges." Instead of three degrees, only one, the Justice degree, was worked by 1979, and the ritual is no longer secret.[7]
Membership
In 1875, after the American Civil War, the American senior body voted to allow separate lodges and Grand Lodges for white and black members, to accommodate the practice of racial segregation in southern US states. In 1876, Malins and other British members failed in achieving an amendment to stop this, and left to establish a separate international body. In 1887 this and the American body were reconciled into a single IOGT.
Women were admitted as regular members early in the history of the Good Templar. In 1979, there were 700,000 members internationally, though only 2,000 in the country of the IOGTs origin, the United States.[8]
Juvenile Templars
In the mid 1870s, Juvenile Templars, or Cold Water Temples (C.W.T), were established. An 1874 Journal of Proceedings report provided information that Cold Water Temples, or organizations very similar to them, existed in 24 Grand Lodge jurisdictions in Alabama, Canada, California, Colorado, Connecticut, England, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Nova Scotia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Scotland, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Wales. A similar organization existed in Australia and Ireland. The children's organization in all of the British Grand Lodge jurisdictions—under the name of Juvenile Temples—was very similar to the C.W.T. It was worked successfully, but independently of R. W. G. L. In Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Nova Scotia, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, and Vermont, it had not much more than a nominal existence.[9]
In 1873, Martha B. O'Donnell was appointed Convener of a Committee on Juvenile Work and elected Chief Superintendent of Juvenile Templars, holding this position until 1878, when she declined re-election.[10][11]
From 1990 to 2017, in Europe, it had a youth division, "ACTIVE – sobriety, friendship, peace." Since then, youth organizations being member of IOGT International, form the group "IOGT Youth."
Notable people
Arthur Arntzen (1906-1997), Norwegian civil servant and politician
Emily Rose Bleby (1849-1917), Jamaican-born social reformer active in the British temperance movement
The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emphasize alcohol's negative effects on people's health, personalities and family lives. Typically the movement promotes alcohol education and it also demands the passage of new laws against the sale of alcohol, either regulations on the availability of alcohol, or the complete prohibition of it.
The Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) is a non-political, non-sectarian international fraternal order of Odd Fellowship. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Wildey in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Evolving from the Order of Odd Fellows founded in England during the 18th century, the IOOF was originally chartered by the Independent Order of Oddfellows Manchester Unity in England but has operated as an independent organization since 1842, although it maintains an inter-fraternal relationship with the English Order. The order is also known as the Triple Link Fraternity, referring to the order's "Triple Links" symbol, alluding to its motto "Friendship, Love and Truth".
The Independent Order of Rechabites (IOR), also known as the Sons and Daughters of Rechab, is a fraternal organisation and friendly society founded in England in 1835 as part of the wider temperance movement to promote total abstinence from alcoholic beverages. The Order has been active in Australia from 1843, promoting temperance and as a benefit society. A branch was established in the United States in 1842, and also flourished for a time. In the United Kingdom, the Order trades under the name of Healthy Investment, being well connected in upper society and involved in financial matters; there it gradually transformed into a financial institution which promotes teetotalism.
The Sons of Temperance was and is a brotherhood of men who promoted the temperance movement and mutual support. The organization was started in New York City in 1842.
Martha McClellan Brown was an American lecturer, educator, reformer, newspaper editor, and major leader in the temperance movement in Ohio.
David M. Fahey was a history professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. After his retirement in 2006, he continued to teach modern British and world history at Miami on a part-time basis.
A fraternal order is a voluntary membership group organised as an order, with an initiation ritual and traits alluding to religious, chivalric or pseudo-chivalric orders, guilds, or secret societies. Fraternal orders typically have secular purposes, serving as social clubs, cultural organizations and providing a form of social welfare through reciprocal aid or charitable work. Many friendly societies, benefit societies and mutual organisations take the form of a fraternal order.
IOGT-NTO is a Swedish temperance society, the Swedish branch of IOGT International. In 2007, it had approximately 46,000 members, in 1,000 local groups.
In the United States, the temperance movement, which sought to curb the consumption of alcohol, had a large influence on American politics and American society in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, culminating in the prohibition of alcohol, through the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, from 1920 to 1933. Today, there are organizations that continue to promote the cause of temperance.
The temperance movement in New Zealand originated as a social movement in the late-19th century. In general, the temperance movement aims at curbing the consumption of alcohol. Although it met with local success, it narrowly failed to impose national prohibition on a number of occasions in the early-20th century. Temperance organisations remain active in New Zealand today.
Grand United Order of True Reformers was an African-American fraternal organization founded in 1873 in Alabama and Kentucky. Originally managed by deputies of the all-white, pro-temperance organization, the Independent Order of Good Templars, the Grand Fountain of the United Order of True Reformers, or the True Reformers, was re-organized c. 1875 by William Washington Browne in Richmond, Virginia. This organization existed as a business and a mutual-aid society during the era of Jim Crow segregation laws, and it supported the growing African-American middle class through economic opportunities and education, before its closure in 1934.
The Golden Age of Fraternalism is a term referring to a period when membership in the fraternal societies in the United States grew at a very rapid pace in the latter third of the 19th century and continuing into the first part of the 20th. At its peak, it was suggested that as much as 40% of the adult male population held membership in at least one fraternal order.
Amanda Lane Root was an American social reformer in the temperance movement, and a leader in Good Templar activities. Root joined Fraternity Lodge of Gloucester, Massachusetts, May 22, 1862, at the institution of the Lodge, and joined the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, February 22, 1865. For over 50 years, Root gave her influence and energies for the principles of Good Templary and the cause of temperance.
Jessie Forsyth was a British-American temperance advocate. She joined the International Organisation of Good Templars (IOGT) in London in 1872, relocated to New England for decades, and celebrated her Jubilee while residing in Western Australia. During her 50 years membership, Forsyth filled many important offices, including 15 years as International Superintendent of Juvenile Templars, in the course of which she visited jurisdictions in Great Britain, the United States and Canada and many parts of continental Europe. She edited the International Good Templar Magazine for eight years and, at different times, did the editorial work on seven other temperance publications, in addition to being a contributor of short stories and poems to newspapers and magazines. She made addresses in various countries before large audiences, including one in the Royal Opera House, Stockholm, and did much secretarial work. The last years of her life were chiefly devoted to work for the WCTU until she was compelled to resign active service on account of ill health.
Peter Turner Winskill was an English temperance reformer and historian.
Charlotte A. Gray was an English educator and temperance missionary. She was engaged in education from her teens, first in family or school, then in the wider field of the temperance movement, particularly in continental Europe. With a talent for learning foreign languages, Gray served as Continental Good Templar Missionary for the Independent Order of Good Templars (I.O.G.T.) and was instrumental in establishing branches of the organization in Holland, Switzerland, France, Bavaria, and Saxony. She was also the founder of the International Anti-Alcohol Congresses.
Martha B. O'Donnell was an American temperance activist associated with the International Organisation of Good Templars (I.O.G.T.), where she served as International Superintendent of Juvenile Work. She was also a newspaper and magazine editor, working simultaneously on two publications. A pioneer suffragist, she knew and worked with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
Helen Kirk (1827–1895) was a 19th-century Scotch reformer, temperance worker, juvenile magazine editor, and religious writer. She was the first President of the Edinburgh Ladies Prayer Union as well as the President of the Young Women's Gospel Mission. She was intimately associated with the leaders of the Women's Temperance movement in Great Britain and the United States, and was a regular contributor to the press. She was author of numerous tracts and pamphlets, and for 40 years, editor of Dewdrops.
References
↑ Vignette (top): The parable of the Good Samaritan. Vignettes (clockwise from bottom): "First drink - social. Second drink at a bar. Drinking & gambling. Goes home drunk to young wife. Pawns his clothes. Poverty & delirium. Recovery - signs the pledge. Prosperity & happy home."
↑ "Our international album". The International Good Templar. Vol.20, no.8. B.F. Parker. August 1916. p.150. Retrieved 2 January 2024. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
