The American Recovery Movement

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The American Recovery Movement was a time period of focusing on and trying to resolve the issue of alcoholism and addiction. There were many different views as to how this should be handled whether it be by sending people that fit this description to mental hospitals, jails, or recovery houses to name just a few. However, to start explaining what I know to be called as the American Recovery Movement without first explaining the earlier time periods would be like talking about the Abolitionist Movement without providing background information into slavery. The preceding eras, according to Selden Bacon, PHD, can be called the American Temperance Movement (1825-1925) and the Limbo Period (1925-1940). However, one might argue that the American Recovery Movement happens in waves and includes all three of these time periods. After the American Revolution, there were many adjustments to the nature of drinking in the United States. First, as the separation from England, the Americans no longer had access to the alcohol they had once been receiving and therefore the “new” alcohol tended to be stronger as they were drinking mainly distilled spirits, now being made in the states especially for trade. There was also a shift in the consumption of alcohol during this time period. Drinking had become more socially acceptable as a common household additive or enhancer of any situation; shifting from the previously majority of drinking to get drunk or for “commercial outlets.” Lastly, the influx of people flowing into the cities and the poorer conditions set about an increase of urban crime. The American Temperance Movement “held [alcohol] to be intrinsically a moral and spiritual evil” and the control or complete restriction of its use as th... ... middle of paper ... ... Representatives. http://history.house.gov/HistoricalHighlight/Detail. n.d. "Welcome to the WTCU." Women's Christian Temperence Movement. Accessed April 18, 2014. http://www.wctu.org/index.html. Whitney, Elizabeth D. 1970. World Dialogue on Alcohol and Drug Dependence. MA: Beacon Press. Whittenmyer, Annie, and Frances E. Willard. n.d. History of the Women's Temperance Crusade. Boston: J.H. Earle. http://www.archive.org/details/historyofwomanst00witt. Willard, Frances E. n.d. Home protection manual: containing an argument for the temperance ballot for woman, and how to obtain it, as a means of home protection; also constitution and plan of work for state and local W. C. T. unions. New York: "The Independent" office. https://archive.org/details/homeprotectionma00will. 2014. The Anonymous People. DVD. Directed by Greg D. Williams. Produced by 4th Demension Productions.

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