Liquor in the Land of the Lost Cause: Southern White Evangelicals and the Prohibition Movement (Religion In The South)

In the late 1800s, Southern evangelicals believed contemporary troubles -- everything from poverty to political corruption to violence between African Americans and whites -- sprang from the bottles of "demon rum" regularly consumed in the South. Though temperance quickly gained support in the antebellum North, Southerners cast a skeptical eye on the movement, because of its ties with antislavery efforts. Postwar evangelicals quickly realized they had to make temperance appealing to the South by transforming the Yankee moral reform movement into something compatible with southern values and culture. In Liquor in the Land of the Lost Cause: Southern White Evangelicals and the Prohibition Movement, Joe L. Coker examines the tactics and results of temperance reformers between 1880 and 1915. Though their denominations traditionally forbade the preaching of politics from the pulpit, an outgrowth of evangelical fervor led ministers and their congregations to sound the call for prohibition. Determined to save the South from the evils of alcohol, they played on southern cultural attitudes about politics, race, women, and honor to communicate their message. The evangelicals were successful in their approach, negotiating such political obstacles as public disapproval the church's role in politics and vehement opposition to prohibition voiced by Jefferson Davis. The evangelical community successfully convinced the public that cheap liquor in the hands of African American "beasts" and drunkard husbands posed a serious threat to white women. Eventually, the code of honor that depended upon alcohol-centered hospitality and camaraderie was redefined to favor those who lived as Christians and supported the prohibition movement. Liquor in the Land of the Lost Cause is the first comprehensive survey of temperance in the South. By tailoring the prohibition message to the unique context of the American South, southern evangelicals transformed the region into a hotbed of temperance activity, leading the national prohibition movement. The temperance movement first appeared in America in the 1820s as an outgrowth of the same evangelical fervor that fostered a wide range of reform campaigns and benevolence societies. Like many of these movements, temperance was confined primarily to the northeastern United States during the antebellum period. Viewed with suspicion by Southerners because of its close connection to the antislavery movement, prohibition sentiment remained relatively weak in the antebellum South. In the decades following the Civil War, however, southern evangelicals embraced the movement with unprecedented fervor, and by 1915, liquor had been officially banned from the region as a result of their efforts. Liquor in the Land of the Lost Cause examines how southern evangelical men and women transformed a Yankee moral reform movement into an ideology that was compatible with southern culture and values. - Publisher The temperance movement first appeared in America in the 1820s as an outgrowth of the same evangelical fervor that fostered a wide range of reform campaigns. Like many of these movements, temperance was confined primarily to the northeastern United States during the antebellum period. Viewed with suspicion by Southerners because of its close connection to the antislavery movement, prohibition sentiment remained relatively weak in the antebellum South. After the Civil War, however, southern evangelicals embraced the movement, and by 1915, liquor had been officially banned from the region. This book examines how southern evangelical men and women transformed a Yankee moral reform movement into an ideology that was compatible with southern culture and values