(1) In the nineteenth century, reformers wanted to persuade Americans to adopt more godly personal habits. (2) They set up associations to battle profanity and Sabbath breaking, to place a Bible in every American home, and to provide religious education for the children of the poor. (3) And beginning early in the 1800s, an extensive moral reform campaign was conducted against liquor.

(4) At the start of the century, heavy drinking was an integral part of American life. (5) Many people believed that downing a glass of whiskey before breakfast was healthful. (6) Instead of taking coffee breaks, people took a dram of liquor at eleven and again at four o’clock as well as drinks after meals “to aid digestion” and a nightcap before going to sleep. (7) Campaigning politicians offered voters generous amounts of liquor during campaigns and as rewards for “voting right” on Election Day. (8) On the frontier, one evangelist noted, “A house could not be raised, a field of wheat cut down, nor could there be a log rolling, a husking, a quilting, a wedding, or a funeral without the aid of alcohol.”

(9) By 1820 the typical adult American consumed more than 7 gallons of absolute alcohol a year (compared with 2.6 gallons today). (10) Consumption had risen markedly in two decades, fueled by the growing amounts of corn distilled by farmers into cheap whiskey, which could be transported more easily than bulk corn. (11) In the 1820s, a gallon of whiskey cost just a quarter.

(12) In their campaign, reformers identified liquor as the cause of a wide range of social, family, and personal problems. (13) Alcohol was blamed for the abuse of wives and children and the squandering of family resources. (14) Many businesspeople linked drinking with crime, poverty, and inefficient and unproductive employees.

(15) The stage was clearly set for the appearance of an organized movement against liquor. (16) In 1826 the nation’s first formal national temperance organization was born: the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance. (17) Led by socially prominent clergy and laypeople, the new organization called for total abstinence from distilled liquor. (18) Within three years, 222 state and local anti-liquor groups were laboring to spread this message.

(19) By 1835, membership in temperance organizations had climbed to 1.5 million, and an estimated 2 million Americans had taken the “pledge” to abstain from hard liquor. (20) Reformers helped reduce annual per capita consumption of alcohol from seven gallons in 1830 to just three gallons a decade later, forcing four thousand distilleries to close. (21) Fewer employers provided workers with eleven o’clock or four o’clock drams, and some businesses began to fire employees who drank on the job.