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On April 25, 1884, prominent Temperance leader Judith Ellen Foster lectured about the perils of alcohol.

Mrs. Foster was a member of the National Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

The Temperance movement was a significant mass movement in the United States during the 1860’s – 1900, and it encouraged general abstinence from the consumption of alcohol. They believed that abstinence would help decrease crime, make families stronger, and improve society as a whole.

Temperance proponents saw alcohol as the most crucial problem of Western civilization, causing secondary poverty, and social problems.

The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program that, linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far-reaching reform strategies based on applied Christianity. They played an influential role in the temperance movement, supporting the 18th Amendment and other social reform issues that came to prominence in the progressive era.

While we wait in the wings for things to return to normal, we hope you enjoy a semi-regular peek into the Lobero archives.

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