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.
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 Scientific Temperance Federation was founded in 1906 upon the death of Mary Hunt, head of the Women's Christian Temperance Union's Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction.
The Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction, the educational arm of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), was an important part of the temperance movement and played a significant role in generating support for prohibition of alcohol in the U.S.
Julia Coleman was an American educator from the state of New York. She was Superintendent of the Literature (publications) Department of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). In 1868 she presented a lecture on "Alcohol our Enemy" at her church and quickly became involved in anti-alcohol activities. She wrote temperance articles for the National Temperance Publishing House and the Youth's Temperance Visitor. She then became convinced that temperance should be taught in the schools, a belief shared by Mary Hunt, with whom she worked closely. In doing so she contributed significantly to Scientific Temperance Instruction and was an important part of the temperance movement.
The American Temperance Society (ATS), also known as the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance, was a society established on February 13, 1826, in Boston, Massachusetts. Within five years there were 2,220 local chapters in the U.S. with 170,000 members who had taken a pledge to abstain from drinking distilled beverages, though not including wine and beer; it permitted the medicinal use of alcohol as well. Within ten years, there were over 8,000 local groups and more than 1,250,000 members who had taken the pledge.
The Committee of Fifty was formed in 1893 by a group of American businessmen and scholars to investigate problems associated with the use and abuse of alcoholic beverages. The committee was chaired by prominent New York City lawyer Joseph Larocque, and included figures such as the leading physiologist of the time, Harvard's Henry Pickering Bowditch, and educator, Progressive reformer, and future mayor of New York City, Seth Low.
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.
Annie Jane Schnackenberg was a New Zealand Wesleyan missionary, temperance and welfare worker, and suffragist. She served as president of the Auckland branch of the Women's Christian Temperance Union New Zealand 1887 to 1897, and national president for WCTU NZ from 1892 to 1901 – overseeing the final push for petitioning the government to grant women the right to vote in national elections. She also was a charter member of the National Council of Women of New Zealand.
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.
Julia Colman was an American temperance educator, activist, editor and writer of the long nineteenth century. She served as superintendent of literature in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).
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 Ann Cunningham was a Canadian temperance activist. She was a leader in the provincial and local Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), being a member for 40 years, and holding office for 31 years.
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.
Lucia Faxon Additon was an American writer, music teacher, and Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) official. In addition to being a pioneer in WCTU work on the Pacific Coast, she was known as a leader in philanthropic, education, and religious work. Additon was also a clubwoman, being the founder and president of the Woman's Press Club of Oregon, and State chair of Industrial Relations in the Oregon Federation of Woman's Clubs.
Adda Burch was an American missionary-teacher in Latin America. She was also a Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) leader, serving in various positions in the U.S. as well as president of the World WCTU organization based in Chile.
Cornelia Maria Dow was an American philanthropist and temperance leader, interested in charitable, philanthropic, and reformatory work in her home state of Maine. She was affiliated with the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.), as well as the Portland, Maine Home for Aged Women, and the Temporary Home for Women and Children.
Marion Howard Dunham was an American teacher, temperance activist, and suffragist. She entered upon the temperance field in 1877 with the inauguration of the red ribbon movement in her state of Iowa, but believing in more permanent effort, she was the prime agitator in the organization of the local Woman's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.). In 1883, she was elected state superintendent of the Department of Scientific Temperance and held the office for four years lecturing to institutes and general audiences on that subject most of the time. She procured the "Prohibitory law of the state of Iowa", in February 1886. When the Iowa State Temperance Union began to display its opposition to the national W.C.T.U., she came to be considered a leader on the side of the minority who adhered to the national and when the majority in the state union seceded from the national union October 16, 1890, she was elected president of those remaining auxiliary to that body. She spent a large part of her time in the field lecturing on temperance.
Deborah Knox Livingston was a Scottish-born American lecturer associated with temperance and suffrage movements. She spent much of her life in service to the National and World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), as well as the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), Federation of Women's Clubs, League of Women Voters, and World League Against Alcoholism (WLAA). In Maine, she served as the chair of the state's Suffrage Campaign Committee, while in Rhode Island, she was President of the state's WCTU. In addition to the textbook, Studies in Government (1921), Livingston was the author of several treatises and articles.
