WHM - Temperance

Temperance
In longevity and membership, the crusade against strong drink was by far the largest reform movement of the early 1800s. Calvinist clergy spearheaded the movement, but it soon attracted a diverse collection of supporters, more so than any other reform. They ranged from pious church women to militant feminists, from freethinkers to fundamentalists, from the high and mighty to the lowly and degraded.

By 1834 there were roughly 5,000 state and local temperance societies. While the movements was strongest in the usual havens for reform-New England, New York and among transplanted New Englanders in the Midwest-it also made headway in the South and West.

Temperance support factionalized and declined by the later 1830s. However, after the financial panic of 1837, it revived under new leadership and with a new agenda. Workingmen had come to associate inebriation with poverty. They formed Washington Temperance Societies, names after the first president of the country, and worked to convert men of their own ranks to abstinence.

Temperance Reform in Worcester
Temperance had a large following in Worcester, but hardly unanimous support. When industrialist and philanthropist Ichabod Washburn proposed to build a new house in 1829 without supplying the usual barrels of rum, he found it difficult to assemble a work crew. He explained in his autobiography:

I went around to see if enough men could be found in the neighborhood for the raising with such fare as I would furnish, namely: lemonade, crackers and cheese, and small beer. Among my own workmen at the shop, I could find only a few willing to help.

At a Town Meeting, March 23, 1835, a vote was taken on the motion:

That the Town advise the Selectmen to withhold their approbation for License to sell ardent Spirits from all Retailers and Innholders, exdepting for manufacturing and medicinal purposes.

It passed, but voters were nearly evenly divided, with 325 yeas and 272 nays. Local hotel proprietors protested by taking down their signs and closing for several days, to the consternation of stage travelers. The temperance issue so polarized citizens that violent public confrontations erupted between respectable gentlemen.

John B. Gough (1817-1886)

"Hillside," the John B. Gough estate
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John B. Gough was born in England in 1817 to poor parents who sent him alone to America at the age of 12. He came to Worcester at age 25 in 1841, finding work as a bookbinder. Already a heavy drinker, when he received news that his wife had died in childbirth, he became suicidal. A temperance hotel waiter named Joel Stratton reached out to Gough when he was in the midst of a drunken binge. Touched by this kindness, the young Gough promised to take the abstinence pledge the next day. There followed an agonizing week of withdrawal, but he emerged victorious.

Afterwards, the Temperance Circle asked him to publicly relate his experiences, and from there his career as a crusader for the cause soared. John B. Gough spoke with a commanding voice, an ease of expressiveness, and passion. He spellbound hundreds of thousands in both hemispheres. In his first year of public speaking he gave 365 speeches, and obtained abstinence pledges from 15,218 people. He died while on tour in 1886.