thumb|upright=1.5|[[The Drunkard's Progress (1846) by Nathaniel Currier warns that moderate drinking may lead to suicide step by step.]]
thumb|"L'Alcool est un Poison", 1910, in the Jenevermuseum Hasselt, contrasting "those who live from it" (people selling alcohol) with "those who die from it" (an alcoholic and his family).
The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or total 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. Temperance organizations typically promoted alcohol education and demanded the passage of new laws against the sale of alcohol: either regulations on the availability of alcohol, or the 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 (1918 to 1920), Norway (spirits only, from 1919 to 1926), Finland (1919 to 1932), and the United States (1920 to 1933), as well as some provinces in India (1948 to present).
Context
In late 17th-century North America, alcohol was a vital part of colonial life as a beverage, medicine, and commodity for men, women, and children. Drinking was widely accepted and completely integrated into society; however, drunkenness was not tolerated. In the colonial period of America from around 1623, when a Plymouth minister named William Blackstone began distributing apples and flowers, up until the mid-1800s, hard cider was the primary alcoholic drink of the people. Hard cider was prominent throughout this entire period and nothing compared in scope or availability. It was one of the few aspects of American culture that all the colonies shared. Settlement along the frontier often included a legal requirement whereby an orchard of mature apple trees bearing fruit within three years of settlement were required before a land title was officially granted. For example, The Ohio Company required settlers to plant not less than fifty apple trees and twenty peach trees within three years. These plantings guaranteed land titles. In 1767, the average New England family was consuming seven barrels of hard cider annually, which equates to about 35-gallons per person. Around the mid-1800s, newly arrived immigrants from Germany and elsewhere increased beer's popularity, and the temperance movement and continued westward expansion caused farmers to abandon their cider orchards.
Attitudes toward alcohol in Great Britain became increasingly negative in the late 18th century. One of the reasons for this shift was the need for sober laborers to operate heavy machinery developed in the Industrial Revolution. Anthony Benezet suggested abstinence from alcohol in 1775. Rush saw benefits in fermented drinks, but condemned the use of distilled spirits. After the American Revolution, Rush called upon ministers of various churches to act in preaching the messages of temperance. However, abstinence messages were largely ignored by Americans until the 1820s. there is increasing evidence that, aside from the volume of alcohol consumed, the pattern of the drinking is relevant for health outcomes. Overall, there is a causal relationship between alcohol consumption and more than 60 types of diseases and injuries. Alcohol is estimated to cause about 20–30% of cases of esophageal cancer, liver cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, homicide, epilepsy and motor vehicle accidents.
History
Temperance is one of the cardinal virtues listed in Aristotle's tractate the Nicomachean Ethics.
Origins (pre-1820)
During the 18th century, Native American cultures and societies were severely affected by alcohol, which was often given in trade for furs, leading to poverty and social disintegration. As early as 1737, Native American temperance activists began to campaign against alcohol and for legislation to restrict the sale and distribution of alcoholic drinks in indigenous communities. During the colonial era, leaders such as Peter Chartier, King Hagler and Little Turtle resisted the use of rum and brandy as trade items, in an effort to protect Native Americans from cultural changes they viewed as destructive. In 1743, John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Churches, proclaimed "that buying, selling, and drinking of liquor, unless absolutely necessary, were evils to be avoided".
In the early 19th-century United States, alcohol was still regarded as a necessary part of the American diet for both practical and social reasons. Water supplies were often polluted, milk was not always available, and coffee and tea were expensive. Social constructs of the time also made it impolite for people (particularly men) to refuse alcohol. The organization only accepted men of high social standing and encouraged moderation in alcohol consumption. Its peak of influence was in 1818, and it ended in 1820, having made no significant mark on the future of the temperance movement.
Promoting moderation (1820s–1830s)
thumb|Songbook used at the Women's Temperance Organization from Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania.
The temperance movement in the United States began at a national level in the 1820s, having been popularized by evangelical temperance reformers and among the middle classes. There was a concentration on advice against hard spirits rather than on abstinence from all alcohol, and on moral reform rather than legal measures against alcohol.
L'Alarme: société française d'action contre l'alcoolisme was a movement in France, inaugurated in 1914, under the auspices of the Ligue National contre l'Alcoolisme (National League Against Alcoholism), to bring public sentiment for increased restrictions upon the liquor traffic to bear upon the election of candidates for the Chamber of Deputies. As late as 1919, L'Alarme did not only oppose fermented liquors, but considered wine and wine-producers among the most powerful forces against ardent spirits, to which the alcoholism opposed by L'Alarme was considered to be due.
According to alcohol researcher Johan Edman, the first country to issue an alcohol prohibition was Russia, as part of war mobilization policies. and in 1916 a State Management Scheme meant that breweries and pubs in certain areas of Britain were nationalized, especially in places where armaments were made.
In 1913, the ASL began its efforts for national prohibition.
National prohibition was proposed several times in New Zealand as well, and nearly successful. On a similar note, Australian states and New Zealand introduced
restrictive early closing times for bars during and immediately after the First World War. In Canada, in 1916 the Ontario Temperance Act was passed, prohibiting the sales of alcoholic beverages with more than 2.5% alcohol. In the 1920s imports of alcohol were cut off by provincial referendums.
Norway introduced partial prohibition in 1917, which became full prohibition through a referendum in 1919, but this legislation was overturned in 1926. Similarly, Finland introduced prohibition in 1919, but repealed it in 1932 after an upsurge in violent crime associated with criminal opportunism and the illegal liquor trade. Iceland introduced prohibition in 1915, but liberalized consumption of spirits in 1933, but beer was still illegal until 1989. In the 1910s, half of the countries in the world had introduced some form of alcohol control in their laws or policies. As such, the temperance movement in India became closely tied with the Indian independence movement as Mahatma Gandhi viewed alcohol as being a foreign importation. He viewed foreign rule as the reason that national prohibition was not yet established at his time.
The addition of warning labels on alcoholic beverages is supported by organizations of the temperance movement, such as the WCTU.
Prominent temperance organizations active today include the World Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Alcohol Justice, International Blue Cross, Independent Order of Rechabites, and International Organisation of Good Templars.
The Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection, a Methodist denomination in the conservative holiness movement, as well as the Salvation Army, for example, are Christian Churches that continue to require that their members refrain from drinking alcohol as well as smoking, taking illegal drugs, and gambling.
In youth culture in the 1990s, temperance was an important part of the straight edge scene, which stresses abstinence from other drugs.
Mr Fitzpatrick's in Lancashire, England is thought to be the oldest temperance bars and other such establishments have become popular in recent times.
In various parts of the world, voters continue to advocate for alcohol prohibition. For example, in 2016, many women in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu blamed alcohol for societal ills, such as domestic violence, and thus took to the polls to elect a pro-prohibition leader. Their effort succeeded and when Jayaram Jayalalithaa was voted in, she shut down five hundred liquor shops on her first day in office. they campaigned for the election of Nitish Kumar, who upon the request of women, pledged that he would prohibit alcohol. They believed that abstinence would help decrease crime, make families stronger, and improve society as a whole. The temperance movement generated its own popular culture. Popular songwriters such as Susan McFarland Parkhurst, George Frederick Root, Henry Clay Work and Stephen C. Foster composed a number of these songs. At temperance inns puppet plays, minstrel acts, parades and other shows were held. Prominent women such as Amelia Bloomer, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony were active in temperance and abolitionist movements in the 1840s. Another contribution was related to the role of women in the home in the 19th century, which was largely to preside over the spiritual and physical needs of their homes and families. Because of this, women believed that it was their duty to protect their families from the danger of alcohol and convert their family members to the ideas of abstinence. This newfound calling to temperance, however, did not change the widely held viewpoint that women were only responsible for matters which pertained to their homes. The missionary organizations of many Protestant denominations gave women an avenue to work from; several all-female missionary societies already existed and it was easy for them to transform themselves into women's temperance organizations. Frances Willard, the organization's second president, helped grow the organization into the largest women's religious organization in the 19th century. Willard was interested in suffrage and women's rights as well as temperance, believing that temperance could improve the quality of life on both the family and community level. The WCTU trained women in skills such as public speaking, leadership, and political thinking, using temperance as a springboard to achieve a higher quality of life for women on many levels. In 1881, the WCTU began lobbying for the mandate of instruction in temperance in public schools. In 1901, schools were required to instruct students on temperance ideas, but they were accused of perpetuating misinformation, fear mongering, and racist stereotypes. Carrie Nation was one of the most extreme temperance movement workers and she was arrested 30 times for her "hatchetations" - using a hatchet to destroy property at bars, saloons, and even pharmacies, believing that even alcohol which was used for medicine was unjustified. At the approach of the 20th century, the temperance movement became more interested in legislative reform as pressure from the Anti-Saloon League increased.
Women, who had not yet achieved suffrage, became less central to the movement in the early 1900s.
Other causes
Prohibition agendas also became popular among factory owners, who strove for more efficiency during a period of increased industrialization.