To supplement the literature already mentioned, let me point toward Jonathan
Zimmerman, "Dethroning King Alcohol: the Washingtonians in Baltimore, 1840-
1845," MARYLAND HISTORICAL MAGAZINE 87 (Winter 1992).  Other comparatively
recent studies of the Washingtonians include the section in Ian Tyrrell's
SOBERING UP and Jed Dannenbaum's work on Cincinnati.  Ruth M. Alexander has
written about the women of the Martha Washington societies.  Despite the
vitality of temperance history in recent years, it is obvious that much more
has to be done to understand the Washingtonians and, if a historian of the
Good Templars may add, the fraternal temperance societies that followed them.
A great deal more local and state research is a prerequisite.  For instance,
in Donald Beattie's old MA thesis on the Washingtonians in Maine, I discovered
a brief reference to black Washingtonians in a state where I had not expected
to find them.  By the way, MA students willing to labor in old newspapers may
want to do local/state studies of the Washingtonians, Sons of Temperance, etc.