From self-made men to crusading women: The gendered evolution of the American temperance movement in the nineteenth century.

Abstract

During the nineteenth century, the American temperance movement underwent a visible, gendered shift in its leadership as it seemingly evolved from a male-led movement to one dominated by the women of the WCTU. But this transition was more symbolic than real. The two "icons" of the movement in the nineteenth century---the self-made man and the crusading woman---masked the complexity and diversity of temperance during the entire period with regard to race, class and gender. The self-made man did so as a statement of the exclusivity and authority of white, middle-class manhood. The crusading woman did so as a pragmatic means of building a political coalition. An examination of the existence, creation and function of these icons is important for understanding the evolving meaning and context of temperance and its employment of gender. Through an examination of the self-made man and the crusading woman, temperance becomes a story of how the debate on racial and gendered equality became submerged in service to a corporate, political enterprise and how men's and women's identities and functions were reconfigured in relationship to each other and within this shifting political and cultural landscape.