I'm sending this from the H-SCI-MED-TECH list!

Cheers,

Dan Malleck
Community Health Sciences,
Brock University
St. Catharines, Ontario.

>H-NET BOOK REVIEW
>Published by [log in to unmask] (April, 2000)
>
>John W. Crowley, ed.  _Drunkard's Progress: Narratives of Addiction,
>Despair, and Recovery_.  Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins
>University Press, 1999.  ix + 202 pp.  Illustrations, notes,
>bibliography.  $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-8018-6008-3; $15.95 (paper),
>ISBN 0-8018-6007-5.
>
>Reviewed for H-SHEAR by Aaron Hoffman <[log in to unmask]>,
>Department of History, University of Aberdeen, Scotland
>
>In his 1845 autobiography, former bookbinder and drunkard John B.
>Gough related his experiences with alcohol.  "For three days I
>endured more agony than pen could describe.  Hideous faces appeared
>on the walls, and on the ceiling, and on the floors; foul things
>crept along the bedclothes, and glaring eyes peered into mine.  I
>was at one time surrounded by millions of monstrous spiders, who
>crawled slowly, slowly over every limb, whilst the beaded drops of
>persperation would start to my brow, and my limbs would shiver until
>the bed rattled again"(pp. 144-45).  It was with vivid and emotional
>descriptions like this, along with his dramatic stage flair, that as
>a temperance lecturer Gough was able to convince many to sign the
>pledge of abstinence from alcohol.  Gough's description of his
>attack of delirium tremens was part of his experience speech in
>which he described his descent into alcoholism, his rescue through
>the Washingtonian pledge and his recovery to become a temperance
>lecturer.
>
>According to John W. Crowley, Gough's speeches represent a new genre
>of reform literature that developed in the 1840s: the temperance
>narrative. In his book, _Drunkard's Progress:  Narratives of
>Addiction, Despair, and Recovery_, Crowley presents excerpts from
>eight such temperance narratives, limiting his selections to works
>that appeared in the 1840s as part of the Washingtonian temperance
>movement.  The title of the collection is a reference to the 1846
>Nathaniel Currier lithograph _The Drunkards Progress_.  Currier's
>print details nine stages of the life of a habitual drunkard, or
>what we would today call an alcoholic, from "a glass with a friend"
>to "death by suicide" (p.2).  The narratives are, for the most part,
>arranged chronologically from T. S. Arthur's "The Experience
>Meeting," from _Six Nights with the Washingtonians_ (1842) to Andrus
>V.  Green's _The Life and Experience of A. V. Green_ (1848).  The
>editor has omitted the best known Washingtonian narrative, Walt
>Whitman's _Franklin Evans_ (1842) which is available elsewhere.  The
>introduction to _Drunkard's Progress_ provides an overview of the
>antebellum temperance movement and the Washingtonians.  In addition,
>before each narrative the editor includes a short background of the
>author and the larger work from which the selection is derived.
>
>The use of "first-person alcoholic confessions" as a method to
>reform drunkards was popularized by the Washingtonian temperance
>movement.  Named in honor of the first president, the Washington
>Temperance Society was found in 1840 in Baltimore by six former
>drinkers and was based on a pledge of total abstinence from all
>alcohol.  Soon afterwards , Washington Temperance Societies sprung
>up in communities across the nation, getting hundreds to take the
>pledge.  Unlike the earlier elite and religious dominated temperance
>groups, who emphasized prevention and considered drunkards to be
>irredeemable, the new organization actively sought out inebriates
>and showed them compassion and sympathy.  The central feature of the
>Washingtonian meeting was the confessional speech.  During their
>meetings the Washingtonians would call forth drinkers from the crowd
>and have them publicly sign the pledge and then tell their own
>personal experiences.  As Crowley notes, "Instead of cerebral
>clergymen talking down to the inebriated unwashed, drunkards gave
>hope and inspiration to each other through the unadorned telling of
>their own life stories" (p.  7).  The entertainment value of these
>emotional and sometimes humorous speeches, along with the groups
>emphasis on mutual assistance, appealed to many members of the
>working class.
>
>The Washingtonian narratives that Crowley has uncovered generally
>follow a similar format.  The narrator describes how they developed
>an appetite for alcohol, how they sank to the lowest levels of
>despair, and how they were saved by the temperance pledge. These
>temperance tales combine the sentimental novel and the
>autobiography.  Two of the narratives are fictional accounts.  One,
>_Confessions of a Female Inebriate_ (1842) is supposedly authored
>"By a lady" but Crowley notes its author is apparently Isaac F.
>Shepard.  Although, the Washingtonian were male dominated, women did
>organize their own Martha Washington Societies.  However, this is
>the only temperance narrative the editor could find that covers the
>issue of female drinking.
>
>Very popular in their time, these temperance narratives have for the
>most part been forgotten.  Scholars will find interesting material
>on antebellum family life, work, and gender.  With their often crude
>and unabashed recollections, these works provide valuable insight
>into the lives of antebellum alcoholics and allow a glimpse into a
>darker side of life not normally available.  For instance, accounts
>of domestic violence and suicide appear in the narratives.  Although
>the Washingtonians were a short-lived group -- by 1845 most
>societies had ceased to exist -- ninety years later a new
>organization, Alcoholics Anonymous, unknowingly adopted many of
>their features.  Indeed, the editor states that one of the reasons
>he gathered these stories was that "despite their distance from our
>time, [they] can still speak volumes to present-day alcoholics"
>(p.x).  This collection will be useful to both students of
>mid-nineteenth century American history and literature.  It could
>also be used as a primary source for American history classes,
>although the lengthy excerpt from _An Autobiography of John B.
>Gough_ (which takes up over a third of the collection) could have
>been shortened.  Overall, Crowley has done a fine job in presenting
>these tales "of Addiction, Despair, and Recovery" to a new
>generation of readers.
>
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