Alabama Temperance records

The temperance movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries was an organized effort to encourage moderation in the consumption of intoxicating liquors or press for complete abstinence. The movement's ranks were mostly filled by women who, with their children, had endured the effects of unbridled drinking by many of their menfolk. In fact, alcohol was blamed for many of society's demerits, among them severe health problems, destitution and crime. At first, they used moral persuasion to address the problem.

The earliest organizations of this movement were in Europe and moved into the United States, where it existed in a matrix of unrest and intellectual ferment in which such other social ills as slavery, neglect and ill-treatment of marginalized people, were addressed by liberals and conservatives alike. Sometimes called the First Reform Era, running through the 1830s and '40s, it was a period of inclusive humanitarian reform.





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