American Temperance Society

The American Temperance Society (ATS), first known as the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance, was established in Boston, Massachusetts on February 13, 1826. The organization was co-founded by two Presbyterian ministers, Dr. Justin Edwards and the better-known Lyman Beecher.

• Formation of the American Temperance Society marked the beginning of the first formal national temperance movement in the US.

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• The Temperance Movement was an organized effort during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to limit or outlaw the consumption and production of alcoholic beverages in the United States. By the mid 1830s, more than 200,000 people belonged to this organization. The American Temperance Society published tracts and hired speakers to depict the negative effects of alcohol upon people. Lyman Beecher was a prominent theologian, educator and reformer in the years before the American Civil War.
• Lyman Beecher was a prominent theologian, educator and reformer in the years before the American Civil War. Beecher was born in 1775, in New Haven, Connecticut. He graduated from Yale College in 1797 and was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in 1799. He became a minister in Long Island, New York.
• In 1810, he accepted a position as minister in Litchfield, Connecticut. He became well known for his fiery sermons against intemperance and slavery. In 1826, he resigned his position in Litchfield and accepted a new one in Boston, Massachusetts. By this point, his reputation had spread across the United States. The church in Boston had more money to pay a minister of his standing. It also had a much larger congregation. In 1830, Beecher's church caught fire. A merchant who rented some rooms in the church stored whiskey in the basement. The whiskey somehow ignited.
• Beecher took this as a personal affront considering the sermons he delivered in the church's sanctuary against the evils of liquor. Neal Dow, temperance reformer, born in Portland, Maine, 20 March 1804. He is of Quaker parentage, attended the Friends' academy in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and was trained in mercantile and manufacturing pursuits. He was chief engineer of the Portland fire department in 1839, and in 1851 and again in 1854 was elected mayor of the City. He became the champion of the project for the prohibition of the liquor traffic, which was first advocated y James Appleton in his report to the Maine legislature in 1837, and in various speeches while a member of that body.
• Through Mr. Dow's efforts, while he was mayor, the Maine liquor law, prohibiting under severe penalties the sale of intoxicating beverages, was passed in 1851. After drafting the bill, which he called "A bill for the suppression of drinking houses and tippling shops," he submitted it to the principal friends of temperance in the City, but they all objected to its radical character, as certain to insure its defeat.

It provided for the search of places where it was suspected that liquors intended for sale were kept, for the seizure, condemnation, and confiscation of such liquors, if found; and for the punishment of the persons keeping them by fine and imprisonment. Maine Law of 1851, The law was forced into existence by the mayor of Portland, Neal S. Dow. Its passage prohibited the sale of alcohol except for medical or manufacturing purposes. By 1855, there were 12 states in the U. S who joined Maine in what became known as the "dry" states.

And the states which allowed alcohol were dubbed "wet" states. - The act was very unpopular among many working class people and many immigrants. That is when opposition to the law turned deadly by June 2, 1855 in Portland, Maine. It was rumored that Neal S. Dow was keeping a vast supply of alcohol within the city while denying it to the citizens of Portland. He was then called the "Napoleon of Temperance," and to others, an unadulterated hypocrite. The alcohol which was allowed into Portland was supposed to be used for medicinal and mechanical reasons were valued at about $1,600.

It was distributed to doctors and pharmacists as authorized by the Maine law. The Irish immigrant population of Portland, Maine was vocal critics of the Maine Law. They saw it as a thinly disguised attack on their culture based on stereotypes. The Irish community already distrusted Neal S. Dow. The Maine law that Dow sponsored had a mechanism whereby any three voters could apply for a search warrant based on suspicion of someone illegally selling liquor. " The Father of American Education"," Horace Mann, was born in Franklin, Massachusetts, in 1796.

Mann's schooling consisted only of brief and erratic periods of eight to ten weeks a year. Mann educated himself by reading ponderous volumes from the Franklin Town Library. This self education, combined with the fruits of a brief period of study with an intinerant school master, was sufficient to gain him admission to the sophomore class of Brown University in 1816" (4, Cremin). He went on to study law at Litchfield Law School and finally received admission to the bar in 1823 (15, Filler). In the year 1827 Mann won a seat in the state legislature and in 1833 ran for State Senate and won. Horace Mann felt that a common school would be the "great equalizer. "

Poverty would most assuredly disappear as a broadened popular intelligence tapped new treasures of natural and material wealth. He felt that through education crime would decline sharply as would a host of moral vices like violence and fraud. In sum, there was no end to the social good which might be derived from a common school -In 1848 Mann resigned as Secretary of Education and went on to the U. S. House of Representatives and then took the post of President of Antioch College in 1852.

He stayed at the college until his death in August 27, 1859. Two months before that he had given his own valedictory in a final address to the graduating class; " I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts these my parting words: Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for Humanity" (27, Cremin). - Mann had won his victory as the public school soon stood as one of the characteristic features of American life - A "wellspring" of freedom and a "ladder of opportunity" for millions. William McGuffey, U. S. educator remembered chiefly for his series of elementary readers.

McGuffey taught in the Ohio frontier schools and then at Miami University (1826 – 36). His elementary school series, starting with The Eclectic First Reader, was published between 1836 and 1857. Collections of didactic tales, aphorisms, and excerpts from great books, the readers reflect McGuffey's view that the proper education of young people required their introduction to a wide variety of topics and practical matters. They became standard texts in nearly all states for the next 50 years and sold more than 125 million copies.

In these years McGuffey also served as president of Cincinnati College (1836 – 39) and of Ohio University, Athens (1839 – 43). He was a founder of the common school system of Ohio. In 1845 he was elected to the chair of mental and moral philosophy at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, a position he held until his death. Noah Webster published his first dictionary of the English language in 1806, and in 1828 published the first edition of his An American Dictionary of the English Language. The work came out in 1828 in two volumes.

It contained 12,000 words and from 30,000 to 40,000 definitions that had not appeared in any earlier dictionary. In 1840 the second edition, corrected and enlarged, came out, in two volumes. He completed the revision of an appendix a few days before his death, which occurred in New Haven on the 28th of May 1843. Webster changed the spelling of many words in his dictionaries in an attempt to make them more phonetic. Many of the differences between American English and other English variants evident today originated this way.

The modern convention of having only one acceptable and correct spelling for a word is due mostly to the efforts of Webster, in standardizing spelling. Prior to this, the popular sentiment toward spelling might have best been summed up by Benjamin Franklin who said that he “had no use for a man with but one spelling for a word. ” produced his own modern English translation of the Bible in 1833. Though an excellent and highly accurate translation, Webster’s Bible was not widely accepted, due to the continued popularity of the ancient King James version.

It was, however, was the most significant English language translation of the scriptures to be done since the King James version of more than 200 years earlier. Mary Lyon, American educator, founder of Mt. Holyoke College, b. Buckland, Mass. She attended three academies in Massachusetts; later she taught at Ashfield, Mass. , Londonderry, N. H. , and Ipswich, Mass. Interested in promoting the higher education of women, she won the aid of several influential men and succeeded (1837) in establishing Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary (later Mt. Holyoke College) at South Hadley, Mass. She served as principal for 12 years, directing the development of a well-rounded college program and emphasizing the principle of service to others.

Emma Willard, Educator. Born Emma Hart on February 23, 1787, in Berlin, Connecticut. Emma Willard is remembered for her trailblazing efforts on behalf of women’s education. Raised by a father who, while a farmer, encouraged her to read and think for herself, she attended a local academy rom 1802 to 1804 and then began teaching. - In 1807 Emma Willard went to Middlebury, Vermont to head a female academy there. Two years later she married a local doctor named John Willard. She opened her own school, the Middlebury Female Seminary, in 1814 to provide advanced education that young women were denied by colleges.

Her Address Proposing a Plan for Improving Female Education (1819) was a much admired and influential proposal to get public support for advanced education for young women. Emma Willard moved to Troy, New York, in 1821, where she opened the Troy Female Seminary. (It was renamed the Emma Willard School in 1895. ) With both boarding and day students, in some respects it was the first U. S. institution of serious learning for young women, though even it recognized that most of its graduates would be housewives, not professionals, and most of its students came from families of means. The school actually made a profit, and she also earned money from the textbooks she wrote.

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