I always have been puzzled about the change in attitude toward alcoholic drink
that took place in the nineteenth century, why the different response to ageold
problems.  Generally historians explain the change by reference to industrial-
ization or modernization and, confusingly, explain temperance in religious
terms too.        A complication is that the nineteenth century was a time of
growing secularization which meant that religiosity  itself had an altered
meaning.  New denominations such as Universalism were strongly committed to
temperance.  All this leads to a question: how much was the nineteenth-century
temperance movement a condemnation of alcoholic drink because it undermined
human reason?
 
 David Fahey (Miami Univ., Ohio) [log in to unmask]