1st Edition

Gender and the American Temperance Movement of the Nineteenth Century

By Holly Berkley Fletcher Copyright 2008
    202 Pages
    by Routledge

    202 Pages
    by Routledge

    During the nineteenth century, the American temperance movement underwent a visible, gendered shift in its leadership as it evolved from a male-led movement to one dominated by the women. However, this transition of leadership masked the complexity and diversity of the temperance movement. Through an examination of the two icons of the movement -- the self-made man and the crusading woman -- Fletcher demonstrates the evolving meaning and context of temperance and gender. Temperance becomes a story of how the debate on racial and gender equality became submerged in service to a corporate, political enterprise and how men’s and women’s identities and functions were reconfigured in relationship to each other and within this shifting political and cultural landscape.

    List of Figures

    Acknowledgments

    Introduction

    Chapter One: Self-Made Men: Temperance, Identity, and Authority in Antebellum America

    Chapter Two: Temperance Counter-Cultures and the Coming of the Civil War

    Chapter Three: "Let Patriots Join Hands:" The Civil War and the War on Alcohol

    Chapter Four: Crusading Women: The Creation of a New Temperance Icon

    Chapter Five: A "Knitting Together of Hearts:" The Crusader, the WCTU, and the Building of a Temperance Coalition

    Notes

    Bibliography

    Index

    Biography

    Holly Berkley Fletcher

    "Recommended." - D.M. Fahey, Choice