Women were centrally involved in the temperance movement of the late
1800s, an effort to curb the devastating outcomes of men’s excessive
drinking that could include domestic abuse, abandonment of families,
and loss of employment. Indeed, women’s temperance unions throughout
the country are now recognized as having been some of the best
organized and most effective reform groups. In 1899, the Salem Woman’s
Christian Temperance Union published a cookbook to raise funds to
support their efforts. In the book, they explained that they worked to
educate people about the “scientific and religious” reasons for having
a stronger observance of the Sabbath; to “train spiritually” those who
were imprisoned; to teach principles of abstinence and prohibition in
their Sunday school; and to teach foreign-born residents the value of
“Gospel Temperance.”
They involved themselves with “working men”—railroad men, telegraph
operators, street-car men, policemen, express and hackmen” are
mentioned specifically—and with soldiers and sailors “to create a
sentiment against the canteen.” The union published and distributed
books, papers, leaflets, and a regular newsletter, The Union Signal,
that provided information on issues of concern to women and related to
temperance. As their work progressed, union leaders trained younger
women to carry on what they had started. Their motto was “For God, and
Home, and Native Land.”10
Notes
10 Cookbook of the Salem Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, 1899.
