One of the most popular social and religious reform movements of the mid-19th century United States was the temperance movement. This movement arose in the 1830s and 1840s and was rooted in Christian Protestant thinking. Members advocated against the consumption and sale of alcohol and tobacco at the state and local level. They were very active in abolitionist circles, and many famous abolitionists also supported temperance. Public meetings and newspapers were their main ways of advocating. Similarly, children also embraced the temperance movement and incorporated it into their manuscript newspapers. Some only included a couple of articles, while others made temperance the central theme and purpose of their paper. An example of this is the newspaper The Casket (Portlandville, N.Y.) published in 1871.
The Casket (Portlandville, N.Y.)
This newspaper was edited and published by an unidentified girl in Portlandville, NY in 1871. She emphasized that the newspaper was completely aligned with the temperance movement, and she included poetry and articles from other newspapers at the time, including The Temperance Patriot. The editress wrote that "The Casket is 'not dead but speaketh' and is published semimonthly its sentiments are, No Rum. No Tobacco. No Profanity." The editress included short stories, puzzles, moralistic and religious reflections, and correspondence. She denounced the drinking of alcohol, especially whiskey and wine, and smoking tobacco. She used a colorful pink ribbon to hold the paper together.
Portlandville, NY was created around 1828 when a post office was first established in the village. It is located along the Susquehanna River, northeast of Oneonta. It is within the town of Milford in Otsego County. The town area was first settled after the Revolutionary War, but it wasn’t a separate hamlet until the early 19th century. Hamlets are communities within towns in New York. They are under the jurisdiction of the town and have no official boundaries. The plot of land for Portlandville had originally belonged to Colonel Joseph Mumford, son of Thomas Mumford, the first permanent settler of the area. It was Col. Mumford who gave the names for both the town of Milford and the hamlet of Portlandville.
Suggested Classroom Questions and Activities
- What were the causes of the temperance movement? What were its consequences?
- Was any legislature at the state or national level enacted in the 19th century?
- How did different states react to the movement? How did Massachusetts react?
- Was there any opposition to it? If so, from where or who?
- Ask your students to choose a state, conduct research, and write what the reactions and effects of the temperance movement were.
- Ask your students to write a biography of an important figure of the temperance movement, with emphasis on their role in the movement.
- Ask your students to research and write about other religious and/or social movements in the 19th century that complemented the temperance movement.
- Alternatively, ask your students to research and write about those that were against the temperance movement.
Ask your students to research and write about what comprises a social and/or religious movement, how it is created, what it requires, etc.
(CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information.)
(CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text.)
(CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.6 Compare the point of view of two or more authors for how they treat the same or similar topics, including which details they include and emphasize in their respective accounts.)
(CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.9 Compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources.)