The Gilded Age History Nerd Stuff -- Temperance (Patreon)

Spoilers for The Gilded Age, Season 3; Episode 1: "Who Is in Charge Here?"

[I apologize for getting this out so late, had to travel for work, but next time this will be up on a Wednesday]

The Gilded Age is my favorite series that doesn’t align with my politics at all. I plan on doing some content with Joulzey about the show on a bi-weekly basis, but I did want to, on here, talk about whatever historical topic that interests me in the episode.

In this premiere we see Mrs. Ada Forte (Cynthia Nixon) step fully into her power being the one with money now in her family. For those who don’t remember, her late husband passed away suddenly but left her a thick brick of cash which coincided nicely with her nephew, Oscar van Rhijn (Blake Ritson) losing all of his mother’s money.

Needless to say, her elder sister, Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski), is not thrilled about this change in the domestic social dynamic. Ada decides she wants to use her new money to further causes in society and the one we see meet at her home is the cause of Temperance.

Ahh the Temperance movement.

Growing up I was taught that the Temperance movement was a huge buzzkill that led to the rise of bootleggers and the mob, the reason that we have so many dry towns in the United States, and that it was in general a total failure. That, in typical American history fashion, is only part of the story.

For my sources, I watched Ken Burn’s “Prohibition” on PBS (which is where the quotes below are from) and re-read early chapters of Daniel Okrent’s Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. This won’t be a full dive into the entire history of the movement, but the social context that would exist around the late 1880s we are visiting in the show.

I think this deserves to be said at the top, I think that blanket banning of drugs and the hypercriminalization of it, a la the War on Drugs, leads to a lot of shaming and stops people from getting the help that they deserve. But as long as I’ve been alive, drinking is something that’s presented as a “normal” part of social life as long as you are an adult. In the US the drinking age is 21 as of The 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act, but in most other countries it is around the age of 18, with some exceptions lower and higher.

Getting drunk. Getting blackout drunk. Drinking Culture is such a huge part of society, especially in your 20s.

That 21st birthday in the States is such a big deal because you can drink legally.

Underage drinking is bad, and the subject of "special episodes" of teen dramas, because your brain is still developing. But that implies that the issues with drinking too much end the moment you cross into an age bracket. I address all this to say that as bad as drinking culture can be and is now, it was worse then. Not just because of drinking, but the other social issues at the time.

Americans had a reputation for being heavy drinkers in the early colonial period. It was normal for people to drink at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. During the Revolutionary War, George Washington made sure “his men had half a cup of rum every day and half a cup of whiskey when the rum ran out." Now … I’m sure that also had to do with trying to deter deserters, but that’s just me though.

There was even something called “grog time” which was signaled by the ringing of a bell twice a day where men would stop working and take a drink. Well, when you don't have strong unions I guess you have to give workers something.

As brewing became more common in America, people went from drinking 2% beer to whiskey. Hardass American whiskey. If you know, you know.

“By 1830, the average American over 15 years of age, drank the equivalent of 88 bottles of whiskey every year” and more on alcohol than “the total expenditures of the Federal Government.”

Of course, this was in the 1830s which means that the majority of people working and making an income were men and men only. This left women and children at the mercy of their fathers, sons, and brothers.

For people this was the sin of drinking, it caused men to be violent, wasteful, and spendthrifts. Women could also be drunks, but social boundaries meant their violence was taken out on servants and small children.

One of the first ways people combated this without the legal system was through this group called the Washingtonians, a kind of proto-AA. Men came together to talk and to hold each other accountable as they became sober.

The clergy didn’t like this because it took God and the church out of redemption. Not wanting to lose out on an opportunity to gain some new congregants, the clergy began to promote “temperance” which started more moderate but then went full abstinence.

Women, were at the heart of this movement, and looking at this with a critical lens, even while understanding the social issues, one can’t help but think of D.A.R.E. A group of mostly middle-class white women leading the charge to protect poorer people. Temperance and suffrage would become heavily politically linked.

Moderates were against a full ban, but some people felt as if poor people would not stop unless they were legally forced not to. It was a movement led by progressives, at first, because alcoholism was a terrible problem for the poor, immigrant, and working class.

It however was very paternalistic and drinking culture was something people took comfort. It didn’t help that Catholics, Jewish people, and other Eastern Europeans were coming and changing the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant dynamic of the country.

Especially in the cities. Nationalism, nativism, and capitalism came together to restart temperance. Sounds familiar doesn't it?

By the time we see this movement in The Gilded Age, it is after Temperances' first burst of appeal that ended during the Civil War because taxing alcohol was a huge part of the federal government.

A flux of new immigrants and especially the Germans who made themselves rich with German beer (Beck’s, Busch, Pilsner, etc) caused the WASPS to fear. Saloons were the third space for these new immigrants and workers. So while yes, there were issues with overdrinking, people were never asking them for solutions and criminalized the "urban" cities.

Spoilers for history, but in 1920, Prohibition became the law of the land and turned into an amendment to the Constitution. The hope, across multiple communities (Black, white, immigrant, etc) was that it would be a good thing. It would eradicate poverty. Protect families. Protect women.

As I’m sure you could guess … that didn’t exactly happen. You can watch Boardwalk Empire for more on that.

It was interesting to see Temperance brought up in the show, and very much treated with a bit of scorn. I wonder how that storyline will develop if it does.

Another fun history shout-out was the “Portrait of Madame X” and its artist John Singer Sargent. Probably one of the most scandalous portraits of all time.

Never underestimate the power of a bare shoulder.