Canada Dry: Temperance Crusades before Confederation by Jan Noel (review)

book reviews151 firm in an ironic way an impUed thesis of the book—that this conservative hierarchical icon was a rather ambiguous figure. Some ofthe book's judgments will probably in time be disproven. ButJones's provocative theses should be taken into account by everyone interested in the postconciUar American Church. James Hitchcock Saint Louis University Canadian Canada Dry: Temperance Crusades before Confederation. By Jan Noel. (Buffalo : University ofToronto Press. 1995. Pp. xxiv, 310. $50.00 cloth; $1995 paperback.) In Canada Dry:Temperance Crusades before Confederation, the author examines the social composition, motives, and success of the campaigns against alcohoUc drink in the British North American provinces between 1820 and 1870. Noel rejects older arguments that temperance was simply a form ofsocial control imposed by Protestant middle classes on recalcitrant workers, immigrants , and CathoUcs. Rather, by insisting upon the primacy of reUgious motivations in launching and sustaining the various temperance movements, and in particular, radical, Utopian forms of both Protestant and CathoUc Christianity, Canada Dry posits that the temperance movement enUsted the energies not only of the urban middle classes, but also of large sections of the working classes, and in particular, artisans and smaU farmers. Of equal importance was the fact that the anti-alcohol crusade was, in social terms, an astounding success . Between 1820 and 1870, nearly half a mUUon British North Americans took the total-abstinence pledge and, whUe the author reminds us that die movement faded in its stated aim of totally eradicating the consumption of alcohol , it did succeed in "sobering up" colonial Canada. Especially in rural areas and small towns, consumption of drink declined dramaticaUy, and in society as a -whole, more moderate patterns of drinking were weU estabUshed by the 1850s. By introducing the reader to a colorful galaxy of clergymen and lay leaders whose reUgious commitments made them prominent in the crusade against drink, Canada Dry makes its case effectively for the central role played by Christianity in defining and organizing the colonial temperance movements. In a wider sense, this book is an important signpost for Canadian scholarship because it is one of the few scholarly monographs which consciously breaks with the assumption that English Protestantism and French CathoUcism must be rigidly separated for the purposes of historical analysis, a long-estabUshed but 152BOOK REVIEWS unstated canon of Canadian historical writing. Noel's willingness to use temperance as a common theme by which to study the responses of CathoUc and Protestant leaders to poUtical and social upheaval should be both commended and more often imitated. Despite these considerable strengths, however, Canada Dry suffers from a number of structural difficulties. The central thesis of the book rests upon the assumption that what began as a movement on the margins of colonial society in the 1820'shad,bythe 1850's, become a "mainstream"social and cultural phenomenon . It is at this point that the author simply relapses into the view that temperance was a form of social control. However, based upon the evidence which Noel presents, temperance remained a highly divisive force, not only between classes, but within the Victorian middle class itself. For example, it is clear tíiat throughout the period under study, the temperance movement remained one of the central Unes of demarcation between Reformer and Tory. By concentrating so intently upon the rise and progress of temperance as a regional phenomenon, the author misses the opportunity to move beneath the anti-drink rhetoric. Indeed, it would appear from the evidence that temperance reformers, including Quebec's Roman CathoUc clergy, employed temperance to critique, not only the manners and morals of older eUtes, but to entrench a new vision of personal conduct and class relations. For example, in the case of the largely Protestant colonies of Upper Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, the author faUs back upon the conventional interpretation of middle-class leadership , and insists that the movement was especiaUy successful where the middle classes had struck deep roots. Yet much of the evidence presented demonstrates that the temperance cause originated and remained strongest among "radical" evangeUcal dissenting groups of artisans, smaU farmers, and tradesmen whose creed was a social and poUtical critique ofgentry values. The idea oftotal abstinence...