Founded | 1865 |
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Country of origin | United States |
The National Temperance Society and Publishing House was a publishing house which advocated personal alcohol temperance and a governmental ban on the personal consumption of alcohol. It was based in New York City.
It was founded in 1865 following a two-day, non-denominational conference of temperance advocates Saratoga Springs, New York. Among its founders were William E. Dodge, Neal Dow and James Black. [1] Dodge was elected president and held the position until his death in 1883. [2]
During its first 60 years, it published over a billion pages of literature in support of the temperance movement. Its three monthly magazines had a combined circulation of about 600,000. They were The National Temperance Advocate for adults, The Youth's Temperance Banner for adolescents, and The Water Lily for children. The Society also published over 2,000 books and pamphlets in addition to textbooks, posters and flyers.
The group's archive is held by the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia. [3]
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.
The Prohibition Party is a political party in the United States known for its historic opposition to the sale or consumption of alcoholic beverages and as an integral part of the temperance movement. It is the oldest existing third party in the United States and the third-longest active party.
Neal Dow was an American Prohibition advocate and politician. Nicknamed the "Napoleon of Temperance" and the "Father of Prohibition", Dow was born to a Quaker family in Portland, Maine. From a young age, he believed alcohol to be the cause of many of society's problems and wanted to ban it through legislation. In 1850, Dow was elected president of the Maine Temperance Union, and the next year he was elected mayor of Portland. Soon after, largely due to Dow's efforts, the state legislature banned the sale and production of alcohol in what became known as the Maine law. Serving twice as mayor of Portland, Dow enforced the law with vigor and called for increasingly harsh penalties for violators. In 1855, his opponents rioted and he ordered the state militia to fire on the crowd. One man was killed and several wounded, and when public reaction to the violence turned against Dow, he chose not to seek reelection.
The Maine Law, passed on June 2, 1851 in Maine, was the first statutory implementation of the developing temperance movement in the United States.
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.
William Earl Dodge Sr. was an American businessman, politician, and activist. He was referred to as one of the "Merchant Princes" of Wall Street in the years leading up to the American Civil War. Dodge saw slavery as an evil to be peaceably removed, but not to be interfered with where it existed. He was a Native American rights activist and served as the president of the National Temperance Society from 1865 to 1883. Dodge represented New York's 8th congressional district in the United States Congress for a portion of the 39th United States Congress in 1866–1867 and was a founding member of the YMCA of the US.
James Black was an American temperance movement activist and a founder of the Prohibition Party. Black served as the first presidential nominee of the Prohibition Party during the 1872 presidential election.
Marie Caroline Brehm was an American prohibitionist, suffragist, and politician. The Head of the suffrage department for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), she was a key figure in the Prohibition Party and Presbyterian Church, active in both local and national politics, and an advocate of reform laws. Twice she was appointed by the President to represent the United States at the World's Anti-Alcoholic Congress in Europe. Additionally, she was the first woman to run for the Vice President of the United States after the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote.
The United Kingdom Alliance (UKA) was a temperance movement in the United Kingdom founded in 1853 in Manchester to work for the prohibition of the trade in alcohol in the United Kingdom. This occurred in a context of support for the type of law passed by General Neal Dow in Maine, United States, in 1851, prohibiting the sale of intoxicants.
The Neal Dow House, also known as Gen. Neal Dow House, is an historic house found at 714 Congress Street in Portland, Maine. It was built in 1829 for noted politician and prohibitionist Neal Dow (1804-1897), and was later designated a National Historic Landmark for that association. Dow was the author of the first prohibition law passed by the Maine legislature in 1851. He was known as a tireless, internationally known activist for the temperance movement. Dow's house was a center of activism in his lifetime, and is now the headquarters of the Maine chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union.
William Earl Dodge Jr. was an American businessman, activist, and philanthropist. For many years, he was one of two controlling partners in the Phelps Dodge Corporation, one of the largest copper mining corporations in the United States.
The Prohibition era was a period in the United States from 1920 to 1933 during which a nationwide constitutional law prohibiting the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages was enacted. The alcohol industry was curtailed by a succession of state legislatures, and finally ended 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.
Henry Adams Thompson was an American prohibitionist and professor who was the vice-presidential nominee of the Prohibition Party in 1880.
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.
The temperance movement in India aims at curbing the use of alcohol in that country. In some places, the temperance movement has led to alcohol prohibition in India, with many temperance organisations continuing their work today.
Thomas Holliday Barker was an English temperance and vegetarianism advocate.