Washingtonian movement

2025-05-25T01:12:28Z

2600:1004:B330:B7CC:B9C1:7B09:563B:5EFC: /* Notable people */ ndash rather than hyphen for lifespan

{{Short description|19th-century temperance movement in the United States}}
{{Refimprove|date=August 2008}}

The '''Washingtonian movement''' ('''Washingtonians''', '''Washingtonian Temperance Society''' or '''Washingtonian Total Abstinence Society''') was a 19th-century [[temperance movement|temperance]] fellowship founded on Thursday, April 2, 1840, by six alcoholics (William K. Mitchell, John F. Hoss, David Anderson, George Steers, James McCurley, and Archibald Campbell)<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://silkworth.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/TheWashingtonianMovement_ReffrenceAndResource.pdf | title=The Washingtonian Movement | website=silkworth.net}}</ref> at Chase's Tavern on Liberty Street in [[Baltimore]], Maryland.

The idea was that by relying on each other, sharing their alcoholic experiences, and creating an atmosphere of conviviality, they could keep each other sober. Total [[abstinence]] from [[alcohol (drug)|alcohol]] ([[teetotalism]]) was their goal. The group taught sobriety and preceded [[Alcoholics Anonymous]] by almost a century. Members sought out other "drunkards" (the term [[alcoholic]] had not yet been created), told them their experiences with excessive alcohol use, and how the Society had helped them achieve [[sobriety]]. With the passage of time the Society became a prohibitionist organization in that it promoted the legal and mandatory [[prohibition]] of [[alcoholic beverage]]s. The Society was the inspiration for [[Timothy Shay Arthur]]'s ''Six Nights with the Washingtonians'' and his ''Ten Nights in a Bar-Room''.

The Washingtonians differed from other organizations in the [[temperance movement]] in that they focused on the individual alcoholic rather than on society's greater relationship with [[liquor]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Fletcher |first1=Holly Berkley |title=Gender and the American Temperance Movement of the Nineteenth Century |date=2007 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781135894412 |pages=31 |language=English|quote=Even taken as an insular reform, temperance was no singular movement of white, middle-class men. The working-class Washingtonian movement comprised a notable departure from the mainstream. In particular, the Washingtonians demonstrated new ways of thinking about gender roles and definitions within the context of temperance.}}</ref> In the mid-19th century, a temperance movement was in full sway across the [[United States]] and temperance workers advanced their anti-alcohol views on every front. Public temperance meetings were frequent and the main thread was prohibition of alcohol and pledges of sobriety to be made by the individual.

[[File:Taylor Map - The Inebriate Home.jpg|thumb|The Inebriate Home of Long Island, detail from the [[Taylor Map of New York]] (1879)]]
Concurrent with this movement, a loose network of facilities both public and private offered treatment to drunkards. Referred to as [[inebriate]] asylums and reformatory homes, they included the [[New York State Inebriate Asylum]], The Inebriate Home of Long Island, N.Y., the Home for Incurables in San Francisco, the Franklin Reformatory Home in Philadelphia and the Washingtonian Homes which opened in Boston and Chicago in 1857.

Washingtonians at their peak numbered in the tens of thousands, possibly as high as 600,000.<ref name=chuckwhite>{{cite book| title=Lincoln and Prohibition| url=https://archive.org/details/lincolnprohibi2092whit|last=White|first=Charles|publisher=Abingdon|year=1921|pages=[https://archive.org/details/lincolnprohibi2092whit/page/40 40]–45}}</ref> However, in the space of just a few years, this society almost disappeared because they became fragmented in their primary purpose, becoming involved with all manner of controversial social reforms including prohibition, sectarian religion, politics and [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolition of slavery]]. It is believed that [[Abraham Lincoln]] attended and spoke at one of the great revivals, presumably not for treatment, but out of interest in various issues being discussed.<ref name=chuckwhite />

As the Washingtonians drifted away from their initial purpose in helping the individual alcoholic; disagreements, infighting, and controversies over [[Prohibition in the United States]] eventually destroyed the group. The Washingtonians became so thoroughly extinct that by 1935, when [[William Griffith Wilson]] ("Bill") and [[Bob Smith (doctor)|Dr. Robert Smith]] ("Dr. Bob") joined together in forming Alcoholics Anonymous, neither of them had ever heard of the Washingtonians {{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}. Although comparisons are made between the Washingtonians and Alcoholics Anonymous, they also have much in common with modern secular [[drug addiction recovery groups]]. The Washingtonians were accused by contemporary religious critics of [[humanism]] heresy, or "placing their own power above the power of God"<ref name="WHITE2001">{{cite journal |last=White |first= William L. |title=Pre-A.A. Alcoholic Mutual Aid Societies |journal=[[Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly]] |volume=19 |issue=2 |year=2001 |pages=1–21 |doi=10.1300/J020v19n02_01 |s2cid= 149358033 |issn=1544-4538 |quote=While there are similarities between A.A. and the Washingtonians, the Washingtonians were so distinctly non-religious and non-spiritual in orientation that they were charged by their religious critics with the heresy of humanism (placing their own power above the power of God)}}</ref>

==Notable people==
* [[Esther Lord McNeill]] (1812–1907), temperance leader

==See also==
*[[Temperance organizations]]
*[[Martha Washingtonians]]

==References==
<references/>

==Sources==
* Blocker, Jack S. et al. (Eds.), ''Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History'', vol. 2, Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio 2003.
* Blumberg, Leonard U. The significance of the alcohol prohibitionists for the Washingtonian Temperance Society. ''The Journal of Studies on Alcohol'', 1980, ''41(L)''.
* Koch, Donald A. ''A Dictionary of Literary Biographers; Antebellum Writers in New York and the South''. Vol 3. Myers, Joe (Ed.) : Detroit: Bruccoli, 1979, 3-7.
* Leonard U. Blumberg & William L. Pittman, ''Beware the First Drink! The Washingtonian Temperance Movement and Alcoholics Anonymous'', Seattle: Glen Abbey Books, 1991, {{ISBN|0-934125-22-8}}.

==External links==
*[http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/temperance.htm Abraham Lincoln's Temperance address to the Washingtonians, 1842] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130111160236/http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/temperance.htm |date=2013-01-11 }}
*[http://aaagnostica.org/2012/07/15/washingtonian-forbears-of-alcoholics-anonymous/ Washingtonian Forebears of Alcoholics Anonymous]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Washingtonian Movement}}
[[Category:1840 establishments in Maryland]]
[[Category:Addiction and substance abuse organizations]]
[[Category:Drug rehabilitation]]
[[Category:Organizations based in Baltimore]]
[[Category:Temperance organizations in the United States]]
[[Category:Therapeutic community]]

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Washingtonian movement