<strong><p align="center">Temperance Movement</strong></p>

In this exhibit, the word "temperance" refers to a range of positions. Early in the movement, it could mean moderation in or abstinence from drinking alcoholic beverages. The American temperance movement began in the late 1820s and had its roots in religious and capitalist thought. Protestant churches especially embraced the idea. They preached that by avoiding the moral evil of alcohol, believers would be better prepared for eternal life. Agrarian interests and industrial leaders argued that moderation or abstinence would improve work habits. Before long, however, temperance came to mean total prohibition. Support increased, and temperance societies sprang up in hundreds of communities nationwide. Tennessee's first societies appeared early in the movement. In 1829, citizens in Kingsport and Nashville organized fellowships. Newspapers and journals devoted to the cause were published in Maryville, Tullahoma, and Nashville. The Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and Anti-Saloon League became powerful voices, in Tennessee and nationally, for social change. There was even a national Prohibition Party.

William G. "Parson" Brownlow, Reconstruction governor of Tennessee, was also a Methodist minister. He predicted that drinking would "bring down upon us…Sodom's guilt and Sodom's doom." Political quarrels over the prohibition issue were common in Tennessee. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the General Assembly enacted laws that forbade liquor sales near schools, churches, and hospitals. The issue came to dominate Tennessee politics and it was "dry" vs. "wet," or prohibition vs. anti-prohibition.

Tennessee's most shocking prohibition-related event took place in downtown Nashville on November 8, 1908. It was a killing that changed the direction of state politics in favor of the dry forces. Edward Ward Carmack and Duncan Brown Cooper were bitter enemies. Once good friends, the men had come to despise each other after Cooper supported another candidate, Malcolm Patterson, in the 1907 Democratic primary for governor. The next year Carmack, editor of the Nashville Banner and a staunch prohibitionist, published a scathing attack on Cooper, a leader in the wet forces.

Cooper and his son Robin were on foot when, by sheer coincidence, Carmack came walking toward them. Versions of what happened next differ. A popular account has it that Carmack, fearing for his life, fired his pistol first, with Robin returning fire. Whoever initiated the affair, Carmack lay dead at the corner of 7th and Union, and the drys had a martyr.

Efforts to achieve a ban continued until 1909, when a partial statewide prohibition became law. One bill banned the sale of liquor within four miles of a school, and a second prohibited the manufacture of intoxicating beverages. Gov. Patterson used his veto power, but the legislature overrode it. Although the laws went into effect, they were only loosely enforced. Bars and saloons in Memphis and Nashville operated openly, and the drys charged that the liquor interests had bought influence.

Tennessee ratified the 18th Amendment (National Prohibition) on January 13, 1919. Though it did not prohibit drinking alcohol, it outlawed its sale and distribution. The new constitutional amendment went into effect the following year. It was repealed in 1933 by the 21th Amendment.

<strong><p align="center">Sons of Temperance</strong></p>

The Sons of Temperance was founded in 1842 as a fraternal order urging prohibition or reduction of the use of alcoholic beverages. It was the most widely known brotherhood of its kind. Its mission was to shield its members from the evils of drink and elevate their character. These two undated songs were published in Nashville.

John Russwurm of Rutherford County joined the Sons of Temperance on September 1, 1852. The Rutherford County chapter was ahead of the curve as such societies were not yet very popular in the South.

Churches were natural choices for hosting temperance talks. An unidentified Methodist church was the venue for this 1884 event featuring Prof. John Moffat, a Scots-Canadian celebrated on the temperance lecture circuit. Moffat was familiar to Tennesseans as a landowner who donated property for the site of Fairmount College, a women's school on Monteagle Mountain.

John J. Hickman was a well-known leader in the Independent Order of Good Templars (I.O.G.T.), a brotherhood whose sole purpose was "delivering the land and the world from the curse of intemperance." He was a dynamic speaker who lectured in Lynchburg, Moore County, Tennessee, in 1883. Hickman was described as an "abstainer" who had never tasted intoxicating liquors, coffee, tea or used tobacco in any form.

<strong><p align="center">Women's Christian Temperance Union</strong></p>

However, not everyone who supported the temperance movement also supported the Women's Christian Temperance Union. A Madison County planter and ardent prohibitionist, Robert H. Cartmell, made this diary entry critical of the WCTU. He complains that its members fill the church pulpits, and he thinks it would be wise for the women to read what St. Paul had to say about women speaking publicly.

[...] A crowd there [in town]. The Women's Temperance I believe for the whole state, Methodist, Baptist, & Campbellites mostly if not altogether, quite a crowd of them. Saw in the papers where at the 11, o,clock services Sunday morning the women would fill the pulpit of the different churches — I think all of the churches, except the Presr [Presbyterian], Episcopal & maybe the Catholic, with a temperance lecture, seems strange, never the less it is true. Before beginning their lectures [they] ought to read to the Congregation what Paul has to say about women speaking in public. According to my idea of things, it is a shame, a usurpation, a defiance of God's word. Can one be wrong in not approving of such things. The Bible speaks plainly on this subject.

While many Americans supported the temperance cause, many other Americans did not. Supporters of temperance were often seen as scolds or busybodies, as this blistering critique indicates.

I

We, the ad[illeg.]s of cold water, ignorance and prohibition, [illeg.] the Lord thy God's, who did not bring thee out of the land of Egypt but want to bring thee into the house of bondage; thou shalt have no other God before us.

II

[illeg.] shalt not make, handle, sell nor drink [illeg.] [str]ong drink; for ye are poor people and w[illeg.] good enough for ye. We the rich, ho[wever], are God's chosen people, and thus ha[ve the r]ight to drink fine wines, strong drink, or [anyth]ing our heart lusteth after.

III

Thou shalt not drink the muddy river water in vain, except in public; for as a Prohibitionist, you ought to have sense enough to know the art of drinking wine, beer or brandy; or any other good drink, without being seen by anybody. [...]

VIII

Thou shalt no[t] [st]eal, for this is the most infamous of crimes [illeg.] the poor, no matter what color or nationality, and must be punished with the extremest [illeg.]enality of the law; but we God's elected and the Prohibitionist, claim the right of stealing not only thy hard earned money, but also the liberties which thy forefathers fought for, by dictating what thou shouldst eat, drink and wear, and how thou shouldst spend thy money. [...]

<strong><p align="center">Edward Ward Carmack</strong></p>

Edward Ward Carmack was born in Sumner County, Tennessee, in 1858. He was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1884, to the U. S. House of Representatives in 1896, and to the U. S. Senate in 1901. Because of his political career, Carmack had already gained a reputation as a social and political reformer when he took up the temperance fight. When he left the U. S. Senate in 1907, Carmack became editor of the Nashville Tennessean (a newspaper founded by Col. Luke Lea) and used his position to further the prohibition cause. In 1908, bitter about his loss in the recent governor's election, Carmack published an article demeaning his biggest anti-prohibition foe, Duncan Brown Cooper. On November 8, Cooper's son Robin shot Carmack to death as the three men met on a downtown street. Carmack, who had fired first, became a martyr to the prohibitionists.

<strong><p align="center">"Boss" Crump</strong></p>

In 1911 W. R. Hamilton, Superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League, wrote to Governor Ben W. Hooper calling on officials to enforce the statewide prohibition passed in 1909. Many officials across the state had chosen to not enforce the prohibition law, and many bars and saloons still operated openly at the time. Hamilton accuses the "liquor power" of protecting the liquor traffic and enabling political corruption.

As a two-term mayor of Memphis, Tennessee, in the early 1900s, Edward Hull "Boss" Crump openly ignored the state's prohibition laws and even tried to contrive a way for the Memphis government to legally ignore them. In Nashville new legislation was passed that called for any official who did not enforce state laws to be removed from office. The "Ouster Law" was subsequently used to remove Crump from office in 1915. Despite being removed from his position as Mayor of Memphis, however, Crump would remain a powerful and influential force in Tennessee politics until his death in 1954.

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