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The Martha Washingtonians (also known as the Ladies Washingtonian Society) were a group of working [1] class women of the early 19th century committed to the idea of encouraging temperance. [2] The organization was an outgrowth of the Washingtonian temperance movement. As an organization, it was composed of wives, sisters, aunts, daughters and other female relatives of drunken men.
Despite the fact that for most women during this time, around the very beginnings of the United States, life was home-based, these women were actively going out into the streets and looking for the poor, impoverished souls and pointing them to a better way of life. During a time when a woman's place was in the kitchen, and creating a hearth to make the home a 'perfect' place, it might seem odd to see a group of women publicly tackling particular issues.
However, in light of context, these public acts and the roles that women were expected to take can appear somewhat less contradictory: Tyrell suggests that these women saw their public work as extensions of a 19th-century ideology that insisted on the ability of women to preserve the moral integrity of the private household. [3] These readings seem to correspond to more general theories of an 'angel in the bedroom' theory of sexuality that has been attributed to the Victorians by late 20th century researchers of the period—the idea being that women had the capacity to cleanse the private household of the implications of 'amoral' capitalism.
Furthermore, historians such as Teresa Murphy insist on their relative subordination in the temperance movement. Murphy notes that many of these Martha Washingtonians were assigned rather traditional female roles: for example, collecting, making and selling clothing to the families of reformed drunks.
Women's rights were not prevalent nor wanted by most of these women- the movement was broadly conservative in outlook. They had no desire to vote, or to change America in any way besides alcohol consumption.
Considering that these were a group of women with little to no real political or financial power, the temperance movement was a resounding success, since America's consumption of alcohol was reduced by half in a period of around twenty years or so- the effects of these women were not insignificant.
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage, transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic beverages. The word is also used to refer to a period of time during which such bans are enforced.
Lucy Ware Hayes was the wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes and served as first lady of the United States from 1877 to 1881.
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 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.
The Washingtonian movement was a 19th-century temperance fellowship founded on Thursday, April 2, 1840, by six alcoholics at Chase's Tavern on Liberty Street in Baltimore, Maryland.
The International Organisation 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.
In the United States, the nationwide ban on alcoholic beverages, was repealed by the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution on December 5, 1933.
Timothy Shay Arthur — known as T. S. Arthur — was a popular 19th-century American writer. He is famously known for his temperance novel Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There (1854), which helped demonize alcohol in the eyes of the American public.
The blue ribbon badge was a symbol of the temperance movement in 19th century North America.
The Prohibition era was the period from 1920 to 1933 when the United States prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry was curtailed by a succession of state legislatures, and Prohibition was formally introduced nationwide under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on January 16, 1919. Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment on December 5, 1933.
Hannah Jumper (1781–1865) was a primary organizer of a Rockport, Massachusetts, temperance group. After months of planning in 1856, Jumper's "Hatchet Gang" raided Rockport establishments that sold legal and illegal spirits. As a result of the raids, Rockport became a dry town until a voter referendum in 2005.
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 the United Kingdom was a social movement that campaigned against the recreational use and sale of alcohol, and promoted total abstinence (teetotalism). In the 19th century, high levels of alcohol consumption and drunkenness were seen by social reformers as a danger to society's wellbeing, leading to social issues such as poverty, child neglect, immorality and economic decline. Temperance societies began to be formed in the 1830s to campaign against alcohol. Specific groups were created over periods of time dedicated to the different aspects of drinking. For example, in 1847, the Band of Hope was created to persuade children not to start drinking alcohol. Most of these temperance groups were aimed at the working class. Temperance was also supported by some religious groups, particularly the Nonconformist Churches. Although the temperance movement met with local success in parts of Britain, it failed to impose national prohibition, and disappeared as a significant force following the Second World War.
Teetotalism is the practice or promotion of total personal abstinence from the consumption of alcohol, specifically in alcoholic drinks. A person who practices teetotalism is called a teetotaler or teetotaller, or is simply said to be teetotal. Globally, almost half of adults do not drink alcohol. A number of temperance organisations have been founded in order to promote teetotalism and provide spaces for non-drinkers to socialise.
Temperance songs are those musical compositions that were sung and performed to promote the Temperance Movement from the 1840s to the 1920s. It was a distinct genre of American music. In the early 19th century, the yearly per capita consumption of alcohol in the US was as high as 3.9 gallons in the 1830s. In response, many temperance organizations formed over the next eighty years. Some temperance song lyrics were sung with already well-known songs of the period, for example, "Oh! Susanna". This Stephen Foster melody was used with lyrics in support of temperance and the title changed to “There's A Good Time Coming,” in 1857, ten years after the publication of the original lyrics of "Oh! Susanna".
Norman Shanks Kerr was a Scottish physician and social reformer who is remembered for his work in the British temperance movement. He originated the Total Abstinence Society and was founder and first president of the Society for the Study and Cure of Inebriety which was founded in 1884.
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 alcohol.
Cold Water Army was an American temperance organization for children. It was established in 1839 by Rev. T. P. Hunt, who was affiliated with the American Temperance Society (ATS). In its day, hundreds of thousands of children belonged to the society. The movement attained its height in 1843, but interest was diminished by the Washingtonian movement, whose members absorbed almost the whole attention of the temperance movement community. Yet for several years, these youthful organizations continued to exist in various locations. Even as late as 1862, some of these societies were known to be active.
Nellie H. Bradley was an American writer of plays and songs in support of the temperance movement. She published her songs under the pen name Stella or Stella of Washington.
The Drunkard's Progress: From the First Glass to the Grave is an 1846 lithograph by Nathaniel Currier. It is a nine-step lebenstreppe on a stone arch depicting a man's journey through alcoholism. Through a series of vignettes it shows how a single drink starts an arc that ends in suicide. Below the structure, the protagonist's wife and child stand in tears.