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Temperance

Temperance

Evolving in the decade following the repeal of National Prohibition, the Center of Alcohol Studies aimed to document the scientific literature related to the field of alcohol studies, incuding the Temperance Movement, which urged the moderation of alcohol and eventually lead to the 18th Amendment in the 1920s. The Special Collections also preserved lay documents, images, and artifacts related to the Temperance Movement. 

The Temperance Collection contains documents, photographs, and illustrations used for informational, entertainment, and propaganda purposes in the 19th century. Collected, preserved, and digitized from the print Temperance Collection at the Center of Alcohol Studies Library, the digital collection contains about 200 images and 250 pdfs. 

Over the years, scholars and educators have made numerous requests to the center library for historical images—pictures of temperance leaders or events, or well-known illustrations from the time period. Until the Center launched its Alcohol History Database online in 2001, there was no easy way to locate illustrations. Actual images were added for those illustrations not restricted by copyright or for which permission had been secured. 

This exhibit represents a small fragment of the collection yet to be fully digitized. Replacing the defunct Alcohol History Database, which featured a searchable field for illustrations, it highlights images migrated to RUcore, the Rutgers University Community Repository in 2023-2025.

Temperance in the Alcohol History Collection

With it over 600 items, the Alcohol History Collection, formerly held at the Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies, now in the Rutgers University Libraries Alcohol Studies Collection, provides a valuable look into the attitudes, events, organizations, and leaders of those times. The collection consists of monographs dating from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century. In many cases, the Rutgers Alcohol Studies Collection is one of only a few libraries holding these titles.

The print collection includes journal runs of the most important temperance and prohibition periodicals: Union Signal (Woman's Christian Temperance Union), The American Issue (Anti-Saloon League), The Quarterly Journal of Inebriety (Society for the Study and Cure of  Inebriety), and Repeal  Review  (Repeal Associates, successor to the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment), as well as  occasional holdings of the Scientific Temperance  Journal (Temperance Education Foundation, an offshoot of the ASL) and The Clipsheet (Methodist  Board of Temperance  Education).  

There are more than 100 pamphlets from a variety of temperance groups and a collection of original letters and documents (275 pieces, dated 1851–1861) dealing with temperance in New England. In addition to the print materials, the collection includes some artifacts and artwork: banners, regalia, and insignia from the Nova Scotia division of the Sons of Temperance (mid-twentieth century). 

Finally, there is a unique teaching packet titled Temperance Tales and the Alcoholic, which was compiled in 1979 for the Journal of Studies on Alcohol. It contains slides, narrative audiotape, and a discussion guide depicting artwork and literature from and about the temperance era. 

--Adapted from: Page, P. B. (2005). The Alcohol History Collection at the Center of Alcohol Studies: A Valuable Resource on American Temperance And Prohibition. The Journal of the Rutgers University Libraries, 61.  
(With holding updates in April, 2025)

rucore image 69422

The Mill? or The Still?

This illustration shows the potential consequences of choosing to work or choosing to drink alcohol, captioned "Which shall it be, the work of - The Mill? or The Still?"

Source: Morris, C. (1888). Broken fetters; the light of ages on intoxication. H. E. Grosh & co. [c1888].

From the Digital Alcohol Studies Archives