Temperance songs

Temperance songs are those musical compositions that were sung and performed to promote the American Temperance Movement from the 1840s to the 1920s. It was a distinct genre of American music. In 1830 the US per capita consumption of alcohol was 9.5 gallons yearly, almost four times the rate of consumption in 2008. In response, many temperance organizations formed over the next eighty years. Some temperance song lyrics were sung with already well-known songs of the period, for example, "Oh! Susanna". This Stephen Foster melody was used with lyrics in support of temperance and the title changed to “There’s A Good Time Coming,” in 1857, ten years after the publication of the .

A consistent theme within temperance songs of 19th and 20th century society was that drinking negatively impacted a stable family life and that it was at the center of much suffering. "Molly and the Baby Don't You Know" is about a father promising not to drink for the sake of his young child and suffering wife. Some temperance songs were intended to produce guilt about the consequences of alcohol consumption. Themes including abuse were common, such as "The Drunkard's Child," by Mrs. Parkhurst, 1870. In this song, a mother hears her child decry that her father's drinking and their poverty leads to her being ignored by her peers. An archived field-recording of this song, sung by John McCready, relates the song of a dying child of an alcoholic. The child fears he or she will not be allowed to enter heaven. Stephen Foster was considered to be the best-known of the Temperance songwriters.

Many of the songs in support of temperance are not completely documented, but a partial listing follows:

Foster’s Temperance song, “Comrades, Fill No Glass for Me” (1855), is thought to be a narrative of his own drinking struggle. The melody to these lyrics are unknown: Oh, comrades, fill no glass for me,

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