AP Success - AP US History: Evils of Intemperance
In 1827, Lyman Beecher's "The Evils of Intemperance" highlighted the destructive impact of alcoholism on American society.
When we behold an individual cut off in youth, or in middle age...such instances are multiplying in our land...the amount of earnings prevented or squandered is incalculable...the accumulating and frightful expense incurred for the support of those and their families, whom intemperance has made paupers...The receptacles for the poor are becoming too strait for their accommodation...They drink up their daily earnings, and bless God for the poor-house...Thus is the insatiable destroyer of industry marching through the land, rearing poor-houses, and augmenting taxation...squandering property, cutting the sinews of industry...cutting short the date of life, and rolling up a national debt...continually transferring larger and larger bodies of men, from the class of contributors to the national income, to the class of worthless consumers.
Lyman Beecher, The Evils of Intemperance, 1827.
Question 1
Briefly identify one evil of intemperance expressed in the excerpt.
Question 2
Briefly explain how one historical event or development influenced the ideas expressed in the excerpt.
Question 3
Briefly explain one way how the temperance movement of the early 19th century was similar to or different from that of the early 20th century.
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