The Temperance Movement in Fond du Lac, 1847-1878
by Kate G. Berres

Marr St., Fond du Lac, Looking North, 1870s

Temperance became a key issue in many of the new ideologies related to self-control that became significant in the middle of the nineteenth century. The supporters of this movement saw it as a chance to make citizens free to be rational and productive in a society that was changing from one that was agricultural and rural to one that was industrial and increasingly urban. The temperance movement was also very closely related to other social reform movements of its time and perhaps served as a catalyst for anti-slavery, women’s suffrage, the organization of labor, and the “literacy for all” movements.

Central to the beliefs of adherents to the temperance movement was the positivist school of thought of that era. It was commonly held that human society and individuals were continually trying to evolve and move themselves toward a state of perfection. Temperance proponents thought that this was to be achieved through self-control and elimination of “violent and irrational impulses.” Reform movements of the time were in synchrony with the nineteenth-century search for self-restraint and respect for authority, as well as with the middle classes’ attempt to achieve respectability. Temperance reformists also gave birth to the concept that alcohol had a definite negative effect upon the body. ¹

The temperance agitation in the United States passed through three different cycles. The first phase of the movement began during the American Revolution and ended around 1840. Temperance at this time was a social reform movement meant to deal with the social and economic realities of a new and evolving nation. This version of reform was supported by those persons who had been actively involved in the creation of the nation, mainly the upper echelon of society. ²

The second cycle of temperance activity, (1840-1860), tended to appeal more to the middle class than had the previous cycle. This cycle incorporated the Victorian morality of the earlier movement. Its principal accomplishment was the establishment of so-called “Maine Laws” in some states or cities. The Maine Law took its name from the State of Maine, which in 1851 became the first state to become “dry” in the United States, followed by about a dozen other states.

The third cycle of temperance activity, which ran from 1860 to approximately 1892, marked a change of emphasis in the temperance movement. Whereas earlier tem-perance efforts had emphasized moderation or consumption of less intoxicating alcoholic beverages, this phase stressed total abstinence from all forms of alcohol and was effec-tively the beginning of what was later to be called the Prohibition Movement. Temper-ance was also closely allied to the other reform movements of the day, such as the women’s movement. Women became the energizing force behind the third cycle of temperance reform. Often, they were the backbone of the organizations, and there were many all-female societies. While the third temperance cycle has been the most studied of all of the temperance cycles, it is also notable that it was the least effective in altering people’s drinking habits.

The temperance movement began as an attempt by the upper class to curb the alcohol consumption of the masses through preaching about the evil of hard spirits. The movement was not concerned with the fact that alcohol was being consumed. Rather, it was concerned about the extent of such use by newly immigrant laborers. The consump-tion of beer, wine, and cider was deemed appropriate, accommodating the tastes of the German and Irish populations who would otherwise have succeeded in thwarting the entire temperance movement. ³ As time went by, the temperance movement shifted gears and began to change its tactics to appeal more to the “average” American and to focus on the behavior of the middle classes.

In towns, temperance activities typically began on a very small scale. Concerned individuals invited speakers to come to talk about the evils of demon rum and the like. These meetings gradually evolved into societies or clubs that took on the temperance cause while providing a social outlet for the membership.

In a rapidly changing nation, the temperance movement was a product of social change as an urban community developed, but it was also a generator of further reform. It addressed what was regarded as a very serious problem, alcohol overuse and abuse. The temperance movement, as a vehicle of social reform, also helped change society’s expectations of the role of the churches in America, involving them more actively in sol-ving social problems. The movement allowed businessmen and managers to assert greater control over their workers. In turn, temperance helped prepare the work force to make the transition from a pre-industrial society to an industrial one. Finally, the tem-perance movement was one of the precursors of the women’s suffrage movement, as it was an early vehicle for women to assert themselves in activities and leadership outside of the home, and it was one of the few “legitimate” spheres in which women who lacked political and economic autonomy could exert their influence in a public forum.

Fond du Lac was established as a community in 1836 by the Fond du Lac Company, which the year before had purchased public land at the “south end of the Winnebago Lake.” ⁴ The population of the area was sparse. The majority of the people who lived in the Fond du Lac area had migrated from other sections of the Wisconsin Territory and from sections of the United States that had been settled earlier, especially New York. Some, however, were new immigrants from Europe, particularly from the Germanic Confederation and nearby German-speaking countries such as Switzerland.

Fond du Lac’s heritage suggested it would be a community in which alcohol use was widely accepted. In 1852, five years after the very first temperance meeting was held in the Fond du Lac area, there were three saloons and thirteen groceries stores where intoxicating drinks were sold. All of the hotels, except for two, had bars that sold alco-hol, and there was one brewery. ⁵ However, the number of places in Fond du Lac county where intoxicating drinks were sold had decreased over fifty per cent by 1850, suggesting that there had been at least six saloons in Fond du Lac at one time or another during the previous decade. It may also be that, during the five years since the temperance move-ment started in Fond du Lac, the local cause for temperance had already enjoyed some success.

But the apparent success of the temperance movement in Fond du Lac is chal-lenged by many of the anecdotes related to the places for sale of alcohol discussed in the daily newspapers and described in the Business History of Fond du Lac County. All of the early hotels sold liquor, while Harry Blythe, Alex Gillies, and Harry Jones kept whis-key shops. The “modern-style” saloons included Chandler’s Beer and Pie Shop, Charley Johnson’s Astor Hall, the Meyer, and the Bischof places. Proprietors of drug stores, if they sold liquor other than for medicinal purposes, were required to obtain saloon licenses. The places where liquor was sold in the 1850s were less numerous than they became in the decade of the 1870s, when it was said that a man could get drunk, without much trouble, any day of the week. But drunkenness wasn’t without its penalty. The fine for public drunkenness in Fond du Lac during this period was five dollars, a sizable sum. ⁶

Fond du Lac, as well as the rest of the nation, had a genuine need to curtail alco-hol consumption. From 1800 to 1830, approximately 30 gallons of alcohol was imbibed each year by each man, woman, and child in the United States. As many as five deaths a day, nationwide, were attributed to accidents in the workplace due to drinking and drunkenness on the job. Part of this alcohol consumption could be attributed to the lack of potable water in developing areas in the United States, but this was not the case in Fond du Lac. ⁷

Fond du Lac’s early experience provides many examples of people who, through their behavior, made an extremely convincing case for temperance. When someone in such a small community became intoxicated and did something while under the influ-ence, the incident often made the newspaper or, worse, became local history or legend.

According to the Business History of Fond du Lac, in the fall of 1852, B. F. Moore of Fond du Lac ran for the State Assembly against Joseph Wagner of Marshfield. The night before the results of the election were announced, friends of Moore decided to celebrate, because they were almost certain that Moore had secured a victory. They took their celebration to Chandler’s Beer and Pie Shop. There they became extremely loud and intoxicated. An innocent bystander who was passing by the shop peeked in the window at the precise moment that a large beer glass came crashing through the window, striking him on the chin, knocking him down, and filling his neck and chin with glass. O. B. Tyler, a young lawyer, was the one who had thrown the glass, and he was very ashamed of his behavior. His embarrassment was so great, it was said, that from that day, when the man he had struck with the beer glass walked down the street, Tyler would cross to the other side to avoid having to make eye contact with him. Tyler later moved to California, rumored to have been driven there by his embarrassment over the incident.

In 1848 John Reilly owned the first barbershop in the city of Fond du Lac, an establishment located on Main Street next door to the office of a local newspaper, the Fond du Lac Journal. Reilly’s wife was an Indian, and at that time it was illegal to serve alcohol to an Indian. Violations of this law were treated harshly. Reilly’s house, which was immediately behind the barbershop, was apparently a “meeting place” for local Indians. Reilly, it was said, would provide alcohol for these gatherings. Within an hour of providing alcoholic drink to the Indians, usually only two or three of those present remained sober enough to look after the others. The noise generated by these gatherings was often a subject for complaint by those who were employed at the Fond du Lac Journal. The noise on one occasion became so unbearable that Forbes Homiston, the city constable, was convinced by the employees of the Journal to go into the house and quiet the noisemakers. Witnesses stated that, less than one minute after entering the house, the constable came out of the house and ran down the alley as “fast as his little legs would carry him!” He stated afterwards that there were far “too many bright butcher knives in there to suit him. Others might play with those fellows if they wanted, but he wouldn’t.” ⁸

On May 28, 1872, the Fond du Lac Daily Commonwealth recorded that a man in the Third Ward got drunk on the Monday of that week, went home, and horse-whipped his new bride. He then ordered her to pick up her things and leave. She left him and secured a room in a local hotel. She sent the hotel baggage man to collect the rest of her belongings. When he went to her home, her husband refused to allow him to take her things. The woman eventually took steps to bring to justice the man who sold her hus-band the liquor; however, the outcome was never reported.

Such accounts illuminate understanding of the social problems and attitudes toward alcohol, gender, and race that typified a growing city such as Fond du Lac. While these stories may seem almost commonplace or even trivial in terms of today’s events, to mid nineteenth-century Fond du Lac they suggested a profound problem. Through these alcohol-related situations, like the “pow-wow,” in the words of the Journal, or the moral embarrassment of the man who had thrown the beer glass reported in the Business History, one can see some of the early attempts to impose accountability on the providers of alcohol who had helped produce these events. Published accounts stirred contemporaries to action, suggesting that there was a very real case for the temperance movement in the city of Fond du Lac.

The earliest reported attempt to present the case for temperance in the Fond du Lac area came in 1847. Eli Hooker, a Whig lawyer from Waupun who was also part owner of the Fond du Lac Journal, delivered a speech on the topic of temperance at the schoolhouse in Fond du Lac. ⁹ A year later Fond du Lac’s first temperance society was established. ¹⁰

The foundation of the West Fond du Lac Temperance Society and election of its officers took place on January 3, 1848. The first act of official business was to formulate their temperance resolutions, which were published in the March 29, 1848 issue of Fond du Lac Journal. These resolutions summarized the society’s beliefs. Society members believed that there was a need for temperance in the city and areas surrounding Fond du Lac. They proclaimed vendors of alcohol and tavern keepers to be a menace to the city and that the increased sale of liquor by these individuals was becoming a great problem in the city. The resolutions also called for all Christians to lobby for laws to be passed against the availability of liquor in the city of Fond du Lac. The society stated that anyone who sold grain to be used in making liquor was liable for the decline of families and of the moral conscience of the community. The resolutions also proposed that the retail sale of alcohol should be outlawed and that liquor should only be sold by county or city officials for mechanical, chemical, or medicinal purposes. The group then stated their central belief: those who used alcohol would become a burden on the community, because they might develop the tendency to spend all of their money on intoxicating drinks, neglect upkeep on their property, and perhaps damage the property of others. In short those who used alcohol might become paupers, criminals or both, a drain on the community or, worse, become a “brute.”

The most important result that the West Fond du Lac Temperance Society achieved was the establishment of Temperance Prairie, a plot of land located between the North and South branches of the Fond du Lac River. The West Fond du Lac Temperance Society declared this area to be alcohol-free in their resolutions, sought to stop the sale of intoxicating liquors in it, and, consequently, in their words, aimed to prevent the “vomit from the inebriate from polluting its virgin soil.”

It is important to note that the resolutions of the West Fond du Lac Temperance Society referred only to hard liquor, specifically distilled spirits such as whiskey. Beer, wine, or cider were not mentioned in their resolutions, and one can only assume that, like other temperance groups of the time, the West Fond du Lac Temperance Society accepted their moderate use. ¹¹

Another temperance society that was founded during this period was the Good Templars. In the city of Fond du Lac, there were several different branches of the Good Templars, each founded at a different date. The earliest branch of the Good Templars in the city of Fond du Lac met as early as 1853. ¹² This branch of the Good Templars repre-sented the city in a temperance convention held in Madison on June 9, 1853. The order of business at the convention was to attempt to establish a “Maine Law” in the State of Wisconsin. The effort was voted down by the convention, suggesting that temperance supporters in Wisconsin took a more flexible view of consumption of alcohol than did those in other states. ¹³

After the apparently easy defeat of the Maine Law at the convention in Madison in 1853, the Good Templars seemed to fade into obscurity until 1857, when another society of the same name appeared. ¹⁴ This revitalized society of the Good Templars enjoyed more success. They sponsored many “dry” activities in the community, like picnics, festivals, and temperance rallies, employing the services of talented speakers from the area. The Good Templars, together with the Grand Lodge of the Good Templars, another temperance organization that surfaced around the same time, united forces to host a state wide Temperance Convention in Fond du Lac in early September 1858, a meeting that was attended by 50 delegates from around the state. ¹⁵

In addition to the Good Templars, the West Fond du Lac Temperance Society, and the Grand Lodge of the Good Templars, Fond du Lac developed two other splinter group temperance societies. These were the Excelsior Temple of Honor, an exclusive, all-male temperance society established in 1873, and the Independent Order of the Good Templars, established in 1878. ¹⁶ Fond du Lac was reported to have had the largest mem-bership in lodges of the Good Templars in the state of Wisconsin, with the total number of members exceeding 250 people. ¹⁷

But even the Good Templars members weren’t above temptation. On one lodge meeting night, two well-known men in the community were to be initiated into the Good Templars. One of the prospective members suggested that they go to Harry Bly’s and have a last drink. The last drink turned into the last several, and when the time came for the two to be initiated, they were “quite full of booze” and unable to be initiated. However, they did join the Good Templars at a later date and apparently became productive members. ¹⁸

During its early years, temperance, both in the United States in general and in Fond du Lac, was a cause that was commonly adopted by secular-minded reformers. Very few churches, except for Methodist Church revival camp meetings, were involved in the early temperance movement. In 1810, a number of reform-minded ministers began to adopt the cause of temperance at the Andover Seminary in New Jersey. During the next two decades, various clergymen joined and spread the message across the country. ¹⁹

Advocates of a religious approach to temperance saw faith as a way to ease the anxieties that they believed led to drinking. They saw drinking itself as the agent of the devil. The temperance movement met the needs of churches and the growing religious sentiment across the United States during the early nineteenth century. Temperance also provided an avenue for demonstrating religious commitment, in that it allowed parishioners to do the Lord’s work: to cleanse the nation of sin and evil. Drinking was very much a part of what they wanted to cleanse. Religious supporters of temperance were drawn to the movement by the logic that a drinking man could not give himself to God because his drinking confirmed the hardness of his heart, and he was damned by God because intem-perate men seldom repented. One preacher remarked, “From the United States, then, what an army of drunkards reel into Hell each year.” ²⁰

Some churches opposed the temperance movement. The belief of many was that “God gave the spirit in the fruit of grain and the ability to extract it and decoct it, and then he gave them the inclination to drink.” Churches that shared this opposition included some Baptist churches, who were sometimes referred to by temperance people as “Forty Gallon Baptists.” Some of these Baptist congregations in fact expelled a member either for gross public intoxication or for joining a temperance society. ²¹

The earliest building constructed for religious services in Fond du Lac County was the Old Brown Church, built in Taycheedah in 1842 and used by many denomi-nations. By the end of the 1840s, many churches had been built in the County. ²² The temperance message was advocated in Fond du Lac churches as early as 1853, when the St. Patrick’s Temperance Society was formed. ²³ Almost two decades later, in May 1872, the St. Joseph’s Temperance Society combined forces with the St. Patrick’s Temperance Society to form the Catholic Total Abstinence Society. ²⁴ This organization met on a monthly basis. ²⁵ A Methodist Temperance Society was also in existence at least by 1853. ²⁶ Fond du Lac boasted a Maine Law League, as well, which was predominately Presbyterian. Apparently, these societies were successful in recruiting members. St. Patrick’s Temperance Society had begun with only 15 members, but within a year the Society numbered 250. ²⁷

While critics on the national level suggested that involvement in social issues threatened the purity of religious experience and supplanted the proper role of secular authorities, the rising interest in religious involvement in the temperance movement clearly coincided with the first popular campaigns against alcohol. The success of secu-lar temperance societies became apparent only later than those that were religiously motivated. The renewed interest in organized religion interwove religion and temperance to address the same underlying social problems. Eventually, American society’s expectations concerning the involvement of churches in work to solve social problems changed as well. ²⁸

The secular community’s temperance societies in the city of Fond du Lac grew rapidly from the mid-1860s to the early 1870s, approximately a decade after the emergence of the church-based societies in the 1850s. These societies created their own “dry” haven or subculture in the city of Fond du Lac. They held various tem-perance society picnics and mass rallies. They hosted speakers and encouraged some of their own members to speak to audiences on behalf of the society. ²⁹ In essence they created a separate dry community in which to operate.

Their “dry world” extended to public establishments that they owned, operated, or visited. Despite their prominence in the 1870s, some of these groups been in existence for decades. The Fond du Lac House (No. 2), owned by Dr. Mason Darling, was a temperance hotel that opened in 1838. In 1846, the Temperance Cottage, a small hotel, was opened on the corner of Main and Court Streets by John Driggs, a tem-perance man. The Temperance Cottage was dubbed by locals as the “dish-water castle,” because absolutely no alcohol was served on the premises. Non-temperance people chose to combat the establishment of these dry hotels by direct competition with them, and this created much tension within the city. For example, the Exchange Hotel was established by Theodore Herbert in 1838 expressly to compete with the Fond du Lac House (No. 2). Herbert and his wife decided to start the Exchange Hotel, because they recognized the sheer number of people who would stay with them in their residence, on the corner of Main Street and Forest Avenue, in preference to staying in one of the temperance hotels. Herbert let it be widely known, much to the chagrin of the temper-ance people and the amusement of other citizens, that he always had a barrel of the best whiskey on tap and that Mrs. Herbert herself had sold the first glass of whiskey in the city of Fond du Lac. Another challenge to the temperance establishments was the Badger House, built in 1846 on the corner of Main and Western Streets. Apparently there was quite a lively compe-tition between the Badger House and the Temperance Cottage. ³⁰

Newspapers played an important role in promoting the cause for temperance. Royal Buck was the proprietor and editor of the Whig newspaper, The Fountain City Herald. His newspaper was famous for its short moralizing stories about the decline of man due to demon rum and other distilled sprits. The Herald was also filled with songs and poems promoting the temperance cause. However, The Fountain City Herald was not the only paper that reported events related to temperance. Although from 1853 there were columns in that newspaper devoted to temperance affairs, temperance related stories made an appearance in nearly every issue of Fond du Lac’s various other newspapers of the day.

The temperance issue was also eagerly seized upon by many businessmen. Many of Fond du Lac’s staunchest supporters of the temperance movement were middle and upper class proprietors or manufacturers who had a personal and economic interest in the promotion of temperance in the workplace. During this period the United States was making the transition from a pre-industrial society to an industrialized one. Employers looked to create a compliant, reliable, and disciplined work force and saw the temperance movement as one way to instill an industrial labor ethic and discipline. Success in con-vincing their workers of the value of moderation, abstinence and temperance seemed likely to guarantee their success in business, while their interest also had a public relations value of associating them with a “virtuous” effort to shape public morality. ³¹

Furthermore, national industrialization required the accumulation of large quan-tities of capital. The budding capitalist rationalized that, by drinking, workers were literally pouring potential capital for investment, in the form of alcohol, down their throats, thereby squandering the nation’s future. Manufacturers and business owners often told their workers that efficiency and self-discipline would increase productivity, and that this in turn would lead to higher wages and to the possibility for advancement. This was the theme of countless self-improvement tales modeled after Horatio Alger’s popular success stories. Intemperance was seen as a primary threat to this process. ³²

But the promotion of temperance on the job site wasn’t just an attempt to further the growth of capitalism and industry. Temperance was a necessity, a matter of personal and collective safety in some areas of work. While industrial accidents were seldom reported in Fond du Lac, it would be an error to assume that local businessmen did not keep national statistics on the question in mind. And of course trying to curb their em-ployees’ alcohol consumption was also an example of employers attempting to exert greater control over their workers. The concern by manufacturers for the number of deaths related to intemperance in the United States certainly was related to genuine concern for improvement of the dreadful “human condition,” but it was also connected to businessmen’s wishes to protect their businesses and their property from the financial consequences of unsafe and unproductive employees.

The temperance movement was one of the reform movements deemed to be socially acceptable for active and public involvement by women. Temperance was a more popular reform movement for women than was anti-slavery, perhaps because the consequences of abuse of alcohol so often had a negative impact on families. In women, the cause of temperance found perhaps its greatest proponents. According to the nine-teenth century “cult of domesticity,” women were thought to be the guardians of the home and morality. The idea of femininity discouraged women from drinking, because women were supposed to show restraint and virtue as well as a certain delicacy. Further-more, alcohol beverages might be dangerous to a “fragile constitution,” a common characterization of what was seen at the time as female inferiority. Furthermore, the public did not accept the idea of women drinking in public places like taverns or grocery stores, unless they were recovering from a long day’s journey. Even then, a lady was expected only to order a highly watered down, highly sugared cordial. ³³

Yet the concept of delicacy and femininity did not prevent women from downing alcohol-based medicines. Women who might otherwise regard alcohol consumption as vulgar were led to believe that these concoctions would safeguard their health and cure a remarkable range of diseases and conditions. ³⁴ Fond du Lac women were no exception in this regard. The Fond du Lac newspapers of the nineteenth century were filled with various advertisements for medicinal elixirs that were largely alcohol, all touted as beneficial for the delicacies of women’s health and guaranteed to prevent intestinal imbalance. ³⁵

Often women were portrayed as victims of male intemperance, a victimization that was all the greater due to their political and economic dependence. A classic ex-ample of this was the situation referred to above pertaining to the anonymous woman from Fond du Lac’s Third Ward who was horsewhipped by her drunken husband. ³⁶ Nationally, temperance reformers were the first reformers to speak publicly about a link between excessive drinking and domestic violence. Temperance speakers and columnists in various newspapers publicized major cases of wife beating and called for legislation that would enable the drunkard’s wife to free herself and her children from the drunk’s control. Fond du Lac’s Benevolent Society proposed setting up an Employment Bureau through which women who had been placed in a “compromised position” by an intem-perate husband could obtain a limited amount of work that could be performed in the home. The profits of such work were to be placed into a reserve fund, under the control of women, for benefit of women and their children. ³⁷ The columnist who reported this proposal asserted that he believed intemperance to be one of the great causes of poverty and that he knew of many families in the city of Fond du Lac who were suffering the consequences of intemperance.

Women who saw themselves as potential victims of male intemperance were likely to support temperance. Nationally, a majority of the participants in the early temperance movement were women. But the leaders of the temperance movement were predominantly men. Of the 99 people who assumed leadership roles in temperance societies in the city of Fond du Lac during the period 1853 to 1878, only thirty-seven, or nearly forty per cent, were women. The early societies prohibited women from assuming leadership roles until 1861. The year 1861 was significant because it marked the beginning of the Civil War. As men from Wisconsin, including those from Fond du Lac, enlisted in large numbers in support of the Union cause, women had no choice but to undertake leadership roles, due to the absence of the men, if the societies were to con-tinue to function. ³⁸ After 1865, seven of the ten women who had assumed leadership roles in their societies during the Civil War continued to do so. In the years that followed, these seven women were joined by at least 24 others, and this suggests that Fond du Lac did not precisely follow the pattern of gender roles within its societies that existed elsewhere in the United States. ³⁹

In the decade of the 1870s, Fond du Lac temperance societies began to change the focus of their activities. Instead of seeking to inform and enlighten the whole population about the evils of drinking, that is, to control the problem through moral suasion, they began to seek to rid the city of Fond du Lac of alcohol through legislation against the sale of alcohol. There was much discussion in the various temperance groups about how to get a prohibitory liquor law passed in the city of Fond du Lac, but nothing of the sort was formally proposed in a governmental body.

The temperance columnists in the newspapers also changed in the way that they reported alcohol-related incidents. From their accounts, it appears that the cause of temperance had suddenly become an incredible bandwagon, and everyone in the area was hopping aboard. What exactly accounted for the change is uncertain. Perhaps the end of slavery had refocused the energies of some earlier reformers on temperance, or perhaps the increasing pace of urbanization and industrialization made temperance seem that much more of an urgent cause. Increasing public support may also have been a conse-quence of the torrent of publicity concerning temperance doctrines through newspapers, churches, and businesses. Newspapers started to do more reporting on which citizens were becoming intoxicated in the liquor-selling establishments of Fond du Lac. In addition, the newspapers were assiduous in reporting any disturbances that occurred in businesses where alcohol was sold. These articles also provided information to readers on how to identify a person who was under the influence of alcohol in public. ⁴⁰

By about 1878, Fond du Lac temperance societies had either become anti-liquor societies, supporting prohibition of all sale of alcohol, or they had dropped out of public view completely. Perhaps the societies changed their focus because their previous standards for temperance had not been effective in changing the behavior of those who imbibed. Popular opinion may have been shifting in the direction of support for prohibition of the sale of alcohol as the best means to curb the negative affects of alcohol, since those who themselves drank to excess seemed unwilling or unable to reform. Most Fond du Lac temperance societies became the new anti-liquor leagues or the anti-bar leagues of the city.

In general, the temperance movement in the city of Fond du Lac followed the national pattern of such organizations. In Fond du Lac, there was not very much publicly articulated or written opposition to the movement, but the movement evidently, by its own standards, did not enjoy great success during the period of the 1850s through the 1870s. However, one exception seems to have been that women in Fond du Lac played a larger leadership role during this period than was the case in many American com-munities. Why Fond du Lac women continued to stay in their leadership roles after the men had returned from the army remains unclear. Perhaps Fond du Lac women were a bit more progressive or assertive when it came to retaining their leadership roles, or perhaps the women leaders were able to sustain support of the society membership through what was regarded as effective leadership.

Whatever the explanation, Fond du Lac’s temperance societies did enjoy some successes in their mission. They recruited many people to join the various organizations. They succeeded in educating a portion of the populace about some of the dangers of alcohol and the effects of alcohol on the body. They certainly succeeded in creating a public presence for their message through speeches, events, and printed materials. The movement doubtless helped some people to examine their own drinking patterns, as well as the behavior exhibited by their neighbors. The temperance movement also supplied the platform for launching the advocacy movement that succeeded in promoting the national prohibition laws that would be enacted after World War I. The temperance movement was crucial in energizing church involvement in addressing societal problems, and the temperance movement contributed to helping manufacturers prepare the American workforce to participate in an industrialized society. It also served as a vehicle for women to begin to participate in public activities that would increasingly have a political edge, and the movement gave many women some experience in community leadership roles. The temperance movement was certainly a major factor in shaping the Fond du Lac community into the city that exists today.

1 - Denise Herd, The Paradox of Temperance (New York: Vintage Books, 1981), 356-7. return

2 - For a description of the three cycles of reform, see Jack S. Blocker, American Temperance Movements: Cycles of Reform (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1989). return

3 - Jed Dannenbaum, Drink and Disorder: Temperance Reforms in Cincinnati from the Washingtonian Revival to the WCTU (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984), 622. return

4 - Michael Mentzer, Fond du Lac County: A Gift of the Glacier (Fond du Lac: Fond du Lac County Historical Society, 1991), 19-21. return

5 - Business History of Fond du Lac County, 227. return

6 - Fond du Lac Daily Commonwealth, May 13, 1872. return

7 - W. J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition (New York: Oxford University, 1992), 10-11. return

8 - 1880 Fond du Lac County History, 142. return

9 - 1880 Fond du Lac County History, 142. return

10 - For a list of the Fond du Lac Temperance Societies and the year in which each was founded, see Appendix. return

11 - Rorabaugh, 10. return

12 - Fond du Lac Herald, July 6, 1853. return

13 - Fond du Lac Herald, May 24, 1853. return

14 - Fond du Lac Weekly Commonwealth, April 6, 1859. return

15 - Fond du Lac Weekly Commonwealth, September 15, 1858. return

16 - 1910 History of Fond du Lac County. return

17 - Business History of Fond du Lac County, 205. return

18 - Business History of Fond du Lac County, 205. return

19 - Rorabaugh, 206-209. return

20 - Rorabaugh, 209. return

21 - Rorabaugh, 209-210. return

22 - Mentzer, 103-108. return

23 - 1854 History of Fond du Lac County, 56-57. return

24 - Fond du Lac Daily Commonwealth, May 13, 1872. return

25 - Fond du Lac Daily Commonwealth, May 28, 1872. return

26 - Fond du Lac Journal, May 23, 1853. return

27 - 1854 History of Fond du Lac County, 56-57. return

28 - Rorabaugh, 200-211. return

29 - 1880 Fond du Lac County History, 205. return

30 - 1880 Fond du Lac County History, 603. return

31 - Joel Bernard, From Fasting to Abstinence: The Origins of the American Temperance Movement (Ann Arbor: MacMarshall, 1979), 347. return

32 - Rorabaugh, 211. return

33 - Rorabaugh, 12. return

34 - Rorabaugh, 12-13. return

35 - For an early example, see Fond du Lac Herald, July 6, 1853. return

36 - Fond du Lac Daily Commonwealth, May 13, 1872. return

37 - Fond du Lac Daily Commonwealth, May 13, 1872. return

38 - Mentzer, 50. return

39 - This analysis is based on a tally of individuals named in published accounts of activities of various temperance societies during the period. It is representative of the “public face” that the local temperance societies presented to the community. Records of Fond du Lac temperance groups have not survived. return

40 - Fond du Lac Commonwealth, May 13, 1872. return

Copyright 2002 by Clarence B. Davis. All Rights Reserved. Printed by Action Printing, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.
Electronic publication by Fond du Lac Public Library has been approved by Clarence B. Davis.

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