"Free from All Vicious Habits": Archaeological Perspectives on Class Conflict and the Rhetoric of Temperance

• Published in: Historical archaeology Vol. 33; no. 1; pp. 63 - 86
• Main Authors: Reckner, Paul E., Brighton, Stephen A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Society for Historical Archaeology 01.01.1999
• Subjects: Alcohol; Alcohol drinking; Alcoholic beverages; Class conflict; Clay pipes; Ethnicity; Historical archaeology; Irish culture; Middle class; Social control; Social status; Temperance movements; Tobacco pipes; Tobacco smoking
• ISSN: 0440-9213; 2328-1103
• DOI: 10.1007/BF03374280

American temperance organizations of the mid-19th century stressed total abstinence from alcohol and tobacco, attributing to these substances an array of physically and morally damaging effects. These reformers deployed a rhetoric which was deeply rooted in middle-class American ideology, focusing their efforts on freeing impoverished, working-class, and immigrant groups from the bonds of addiction, demanding nothing less than total abstinence. Yet many middle-class partakers continued to smoke and drink in "moderate" amounts. The temperance movement became a locus for the exercise of class-based social control and opposition. Cultural, religious, and political agendas also animated the temperance debate and informed the philosophies of reformist institutions. The responses of diverse social groups to temperance reform are explored through an analysis of period documents and archaeological material from New York City and Lowell, Massachusetts, in order to explore the interplay of class formation, cultural and "racial" conflict, and religious ideology underlying reformist social movements.