Resumen
Resumen de Tratados selectos sobre la temperancia
Para quién es
For readers curious about nineteenth century American reform, religious publishing and the roots of the temperance movement, and anyone drawn to questions of conscience, faith and community action.
De qué trata este libro
Select Temperance Tracts comes from the American Tract Society, a Protestant publishing body founded in New York in 1825. The Society printed short, cheap pamphlets on faith and conduct and sent them out across the United States in great numbers. Temperance, the movement against the harm done by strong drink, was one of the causes it took up in the nineteenth century.
Tracts of this kind were written to be read in a few minutes, by a farmer, a sailor, a mother or a child. They mix plain argument with warning and appeal. In this summary you will meet four ideas that run through such writing: the harm drink does, the role of conscience, the power of example, and the hope of a better society. Let us begin with the harm.
En este resumen
- 1Drink harms the body, home and purseFree
- 2Moderate drinking is called the first step
- 3Conscience and faith give strength to resist
- 4Example and community build a sober society
Idea clave 1 de 4
Drink harms the body, home and purse
Temperance writers of the period argued that strong drink brought ruin on three fronts at once. It weakened the health of the drinker, it broke up the peace of the household, and it drained the money a family needed for food and rent.
Tracts often made the point through short cases. A skilled workman begins with a glass after work, then spends his wages, then loses his place. His wife and children bear the cost. The pattern is meant to feel familiar to the reader, so that the warning lands close to home.
The reasoning was practical as much as religious. Writers pointed to poverty, accidents and quarrels they believed drink caused in town and country alike. For a modern reader, the value lies in seeing what ordinary people of that age feared and how they spoke of it.
That’s 1 of 4 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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