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. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the temperance movement became prominent in many countries, particularly in English-speaking, Scandinavian, and majority Protestant ones, and it eventually led to national prohibitions in Canada, Norway, Finland, and the United States, as well as provincial prohibition in India. A number of temperance organizations exist that promote temperance and teetotalism as a virtue.
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program that "linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far-reaching reform strategies based on applied Christianity." It plays an influential role in the temperance movement. Originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement, the organization supported the 18th Amendment and was also influential in social reform issues that came to prominence in the progressive era.
Caroline Amelia Nation, often referred to by Carrie, Carry Nation, Carrie A. Nation, or Hatchet Granny, was a radical member of the temperance movement, which opposed alcohol before the advent of Prohibition. Nation is noted for attacking alcohol-serving establishments with a hatchet.
Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard was an American educator, temperance reformer, and women's suffragist. Willard became the national president of Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1879 and remained president until her death in 1898. Her influence continued in the next decades, as the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution were adopted. Willard developed the slogan "Do Everything" for the WCTU and encouraged members to engage in a broad array of social reforms by lobbying, petitioning, preaching, publishing, and education. During her lifetime, Willard succeeded in raising the age of consent in many states as well as passing labor reforms including the eight-hour work day. Her vision also encompassed prison reform, scientific temperance instruction, Christian socialism, and the global expansion of women's rights.
The Anti-Saloon League, now known the American Council on Addiction and Alcohol Problems, is an organization of the temperance movement in the United States.
Mary Hunt was an American activist in the United States temperance movement promoting total abstinence and prohibition of alcohol. She gained the power to accept or reject children's textbooks based on their representation of her views of the danger of alcohol. On her death there were questions asked regarding the finances of the organisation.
The White Ribbon Association (WRA), previously known as the British Women's Temperance Association (BWTA), is an organization that seeks to educate the public about alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, as well as gambling.
Anna Adams Gordon (1853–1931) was an American social reformer, songwriter, and, as national president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union when the Eighteenth Amendment was adopted, a major figure in the Temperance movement.
Mary Greenleaf Leavitt was an educator and successful orator who became the first round-the-world missionary for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Setting out on virtually non-stop worldwide tours over a decade, she "went to all continents save Antarctica," where she crusaded against alcohol and its evils including domestic violence; and advocated for women's suffrage and other equal rights such as higher education for women. In 1891 she became the honorary life president of the World's WCTU.
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 Lily was the first U.S. newspaper edited by and for women. It was published from 1849 to 1853 by Amelia Jenks Bloomer (1818–1894) before she sold the newspaper to Mary Birdsall in 1854. While the newspaper initially focused on temperance, it soon broadened its focus to include the many issues of women's rights activists in the 1850s. It grew in its distribution as a result of its discussion of bloomers, a comfortable fashion popularized by Bloomer in the paper.
Mary H. Bannister Willard was an American editor, temperance worker, and educator from the U.S. state of New York. She was the founder of the American Home School for Girls in Berlin, Germany, earlier having served as editor of the Post and Mail and The Union Signal.
The Woman's Crusade was a temperance campaign in the United States in 1873-1874. It was a series of non-violent protests fighting against the dangers of alcoholism.
Agnes Elizabeth Slack or Agnes Elizabeth Saunders was a leading English Temperance advocate.
Mary Shuttleworth Boden was an activist in the British temperance movement. She was affiliated with the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, British Women's Temperance Association, British Temperance League, Girls' Friendly Society, Women's Union Church of England Temperance Society, Bands of Hope, and the Woman's Auxiliary Union. She donated land to Derby on Bold Lane in memory of her husband which was equipped with sixteen swings as an area for girls, boys and small children to play.
Martha Meir Allen was a Canadian temperance activist and writer.
Emma Lee Benedict was an American magazine editor, educator, and the author of several books of prose and poetry between 1887 and 1918. She was a pleasant, logical and forcible speaker and writer in her special line of educational and scientific topics, particularly third-wave temperance, and was in frequent demand as an instructor at teachers' institutes.
Mary Ingram Stille was an American historian, journalist, and temperance reformer. The early success of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.) in Pennsylvania was largely due through her efforts.
Mary A. Hitchcock Wakelin was a 19th-century American educator and temperance reformer. In 1874, she started the movement that resulted in the Nebraska state organization of Woman's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.), serving as state president for six years. It had been common talk for some years that Wakelin did not get along with her second husband; in 1900, he murdered her while she was sleeping before he committed suicide.
Jane Gemmill, was a Scottish temperance activist who founded the Whiteinch Band of Hope and the Partich Branch of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.). She was also affiliated with the British Women's Temperance Association (B.W.T.A.) and the Scottish Temperance Alliance. Gemmill was the only woman candidate in the municipal election of 1907 in the Glasgow district.
