A Global Imaginaire: Fighting Alcohol Around the World

Abstract

The chapter opens with a succinct review of the history of institutions crucial for the dissemination of temperance ideas and organizational forms around the world. It then turns to some of the foundational aspects of temperance movements. The question of labor and class, for example, points to the historical disaggregation of work and drink practices as an effect of temperance campaigning. The chapter also pays attention to the core aspects of temperance in colonial settings, that is, power dynamics and fiscal considerations. Women’s right to vote appears as another formative issue in the global history of temperance in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Finally, the chapter turns to the creation of a global imaginaire—temperance activists around the world were part of a community that spanned the globe and was at the forefront of an epic battle against alcohol.