The Lost Museum Archive

In the 1820s, early temperance organizations advocated moderate drinking and abstention from distilled liquor only; by the 1830s, in the face of rising wine and beer consumption among the working classes, temperance advocates began calling for total abstinence from all liquor. The abstinence, or “teetotal,” pledge became both a tactic and a public symbol of this sterner sensibility. The Lost Museum’s creators made this elaborate pledge using a number of historical temperance pledges for source material. We do not know for sure that Barnum distributed such pledges at the American Museum, but we do know he was a staunch temperance advocate who served only ice water in his establishment.