An epidemic of alcoholism in the late…
1684 CE to 1827 CE
Americans—used to drinking lightly alcoholic beverages like cider all day long—begin ingesting far more alcohol as they drink more of strong, cheap beverages like rum (in the colonial period) and whiskey (in the post-Revolutionary period).
Popular pressure for cheap and plentiful alcohol leads to relaxed ordinances on alcohol sales.
The Temperance movement sparks to life with Benjamin Rush's 1784 tract, An Inquiry Into the Effects of Ardent Spirits Upon the Human Body and Mind, which judges the excessive use of alcohol injurious to physical and psychological health.
Apparently influenced by Dr. Rush's Inquiry, about two hundred farmers in a Connecticut community form a temperance association in 1789 to ban the making of whiskey.
Similar associations are formed in Virginia in 1800, and New York State in 1808.
Over the next decade, other temperance organizations are formed in eight states, some being statewide organizations.
The young movement advocates temperance or levelness rather than abstinence.
Many leaders of the movement expand their activities and take positions on observance of the Sabbath and other moral issues, and by the early 1820s political in-fighting has stalled the movement.
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Northern North America
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