126 A HISTORY OF AMERICA IN 100 MAPS
In 1801 an evangelical camp meeting drew thousands
to the Kentucky frontier, launching a religious revival
that quickly spread to every corner of the country. In
the early stages of this awakening, many evangelicals
concentrated on individual piety and salvation, but
by the 1820s they began to focus on social ills such
as alcohol. It was easy to see why. Between 1800 and
1830, Americans drank so much that one historian
dubbed the nation the “Alcoholic Republic.” In
part this increase in consumption resulted from the
country’s abundant grain supply, which farmers
could easily distill into whiskey. But alcohol was also
integral to American life: often safer than water, it
was consumed at work, essential to weddings and
funerals, and ubiquitous on election day.
Temperance activists—aided by influential
preachers—built an astonishingly effective grassroots
movement that used extended religious networks to
spread the message of abstinence. The results were
stunning. Within ten years of its founding in 1826, the
American Temperance Society had established 5,000
branches. These branch organizations convinced
young and old alike to take the “Cold Water Army”
pledge and abstain from alcohol entirely. Through
songs, prayers, and broadsides, they insisted that
even modest consumption led to drunkenness, sin,
and early death. Exaggerated as these claims may
sound, temperance was one of the most successful
reform movements in the nation’s history. Abraham
Lincoln was among its adherents, a lifelong
teetotaler. The temperance movement peaked in the
1830s and 1840s; by 1855 most states had limited the
production of alcohol.
Among the more creative temperance advocates
was the Philadelphia minister John Wiltberger,
who invited readers to navigate sin and temptation
THE GEOGRAPHY OF SIN
Reverend John Christian Wiltberger,
“Temperance Map,” 1838
through this imaginary map. The upper territory lays
out a geography of righteousness, where Industry,
Improvement, Prosperity, and Plenty reward those
who follow the Cold Water River of abstinence.
But danger lay ahead of those who imbibed even
modestly. At left, an archipelago seductively presents
the occasional drink as both pleasing and innocent.
But beyond the islands of Medicine and Hospitality
we quickly discover that socially acceptable and
modest drinking lead to the Sea of Intemperance.
Along these middle latitudes, among the only ways to
reach safety or redemption is through the narrow Tee
Total Railroad. By contrast, how easy it is to submit
to temptation and descend toward the islands of
Murder, Larceny, and Poverty; beyond this, one is ever
more likely to slip into the Land of Inebriation. Such
a place is rife with danger, offering only False Hopes,
False Comforts, and Ruin.
Allegorical maps such as this one had long been
used to model ideals of love, courtship, and propriety.
But even within this long tradition, Wiltberger’s map
stands out for its geographical realism and prurient
detail. With this colorful and inviting image, he
aimed to preach the gospel of abstinence to a broad
audience. The result is an elaborate and compelling
geography that uses fiction to teach that happiness
comes only through self-denial. Even the orientation
of the map reinforces the message, for redemption
lies to the north—toward heaven—while to the south
lie decay and disorder.
After its extraordinary victories in the 1840s, the
temperance movement waned before resurging
when the exploding urban population renewed
concerns about the use of alcohol among young
men in the Gilded Age. In the early twentieth
century, temperance won its greatest triumph in
the Eighteenth Amendment, which banned alcohol
for over a decade and inadvertently created an
underworld economy of speakeasies, black markets,
and crime.