Devil of the Domestic Sphere: Temperance, Gender, and Middle-class Ideology, 1800-1860

Drink, in the minds of antebellum temperance reformers, represented the threat of an increasingly industrial world. Seeking to legitimate their own authority, reformers of the emerging middle class used literature to propagate ideas about intemperance as well as the nature of women and their domestic role. Ministers, novelists, journalists, and poets filled temperance literature with stories of women as innocent victims and loving saviors, wives beaten by drunken husbands, and mothers or sisters who rescued men from demon drink. Simultaneously, however, women were denounced as causes of intemperance, and a celebration of female victimization coexisted with praises of womanly virtues. Further, unless she remained vigilant, a woman might also succumb to drink, and reformers had very little sympathy for such a fallen angel. Scott Martin examines these contradictory images of women and reveals the reformers' commitment not only to social betterment but also to middle-class interests and a particular gender ideology.