David Fahey's post this morning effectively opens the
floor on our "virtual seminar" on Laura Schmidt's new
paper, "'A Battle Not Man's But God's':  Origins of the
American Temperance Crusade in the Struggle for Religious
Authority," *Journal of Studies on Alcohol* 56:110-121,
1995.  All ATHG-L members are, of course, cordially
invited to participate.  Perhaps some introductory
comments are in order--primarily to "spike" this seminar
with some discussion-starting questions & probes:
As I read it, Schmidt's paper falls squarely in a broad
revisionist tradition begun with Burnham's 1968 paper
("New Perspectives on the Prohibition 'Experiment' of the
1920s," *Journal of Social History* 2:51-68), given bold
expression in Clark's (1976) essay, & carried forward in
Blocker's (1989) *Temperance Cycles* monograph.  This
revised historiography aims to take the temperance move-
ment *seriously*--by faithfully assessing its observation-
al perspectives & aspirations, by taking seriously the
drinking patterns & personal/social problems that 19th-c.
temperance advocates faced, & by eschewing the dismissive
rhetorical stance of a previous, Repeal-spawned historio-
graphy (from, roughly speaking, Barnes [1932:
*Prohibition Versus Civilization:  Analyzing the Dry
Psychosis*, New York:  The Viking Press] to Sinclair
[1962:  *Prohibition:  The Era of Excess*, Boston,
Toronto:  Little, Brown & Co.).
In beautifully plainspoken prose, Schmidt offers both some
history & some interesting argumentation.  She positions
her argument as a new "idealism" juxtaposed to the
"materialisms" of a selection of past theorist.  But how
well does that dichotomy actually fit her paper's argu-
ment?  Is her story of conservative Protestant leadership
struggling to maintain status under the new pressures of
the Early Republic in fact more like than unlike Gus-
field's "status politics" argument in *Symbolic Crusade*?
How well does the "materialist" label actually fit Le-
vine's & Rorabaugh's hypotheses about temperance's Amer-
ican origins?  Where is arguably the temperance movement's
most materialistically oriented American theorist--John Rum-
barger--in Schmidt's discussion?  Schmidt's essay
implicitly locates the seeds of what Selden Bacon called
the classic American temperance movement in the beleagured
leadership of contemporary Presbyterian & Congregational
churches.  But how then are we to interpret the strong
currents of temperance sentiment that flowed as readily
through the evangelical denominations (Methodists &
Baptists) whose numbers swelled over the 19th-c's 1st
half?  How should we translate the status-preserving
preoccupations of men like Dwight & Beecher into the
motives & interests of the men & women of the T movement's
rank & file?  Schmidt argues that the key doctrinal shift at
the temperance movement's commencement was the jettisoning
of traditional Calvinism's commitment
to predestination & the community of the elect.  She makes
the novel & interesting argument that a new commitment to
sobriety derived from the new premium on sober rationality
that the new ideology of earned or self-chosen grace
occasioned.  But doesn't this premium on sobriety also as
easily recall traditional Calvinism's demand for
second-to-second vigilance re personal conduct?  How does
Schmidt's argument relating to this new premium on sober
rationality apply to the temperance-related enthusiasms of
the considerably less rationalistically oriented evangelical
denominations?  The floor, folks, is open!