Half-Century Notes (1850-1852)

AUTHOR: Alcott, William Andrus

KEYWORDS: domestic labor, ethical veganism, food and diet, reform, Temperance

SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen)

Under the heading “Half-Century Notes,” Alcott published a series of articles on social reform in The Massachusetts Cataract, Standard, and Dew Drop in the early 1850s. Most of these short missives are actually  reports on Alcott's lectures on questions of Temperance, diet, and dress reform in the Massachusetts region. Some of the most interesting passages from these reports are listed below:

“Half Century Notes: No. 1 – Wine, and Flesh” (October 1850)
As the title suggests, this first report is concerned with the use and abuse of alcohol, particularly wine, and the consumption of meat. Alcott describes several lectures on Temperance and health in and near Hopkinton, explicitly stating that he is a “vegetarian […] chiefly from moral and religious consideration.” This is also why he is able to see the connection between Temperance and abstention from animal food. Since the days of Solomon wine and flesh have gone together, Alcott says, and must therefore be fought in conjunction. Alcott calls on the Temperance movement also to support vegetarianism. He writes: “There should be no riotous eating of wine and flesh in all the length and breadth of the land. […] I repeat, that there can be no permanent advances made into the enemy's territory till animal food of every kind, with its long array of kin – brothers, cousins, cousin germans – is rejected as unseemly, impolitic and unholy; and only becoming a barbarous, or at most a semi-civilized people.” Alcott relates eating meat to “cannibalism.”

“Half-Century Notes: No. 3 – What I Saw in Worcester” (November 1850)
This third report is another good example of how Alcott understands the several social reform movements as interconnected. He reports on attending a Women's Rights Convention in Worcester. He is pleased and impressed with the “eloquent, […] well informed and candid” speakers' “[r]espectable minds” – he explicitly mentions the lectures of “Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Rose, Miss Brown, Mrs. Price” as particularly commendable. In fact, he adds, of the less intelligent contributions “a full share […] should be credited to one or two of our own sex.” Alcott is adamant that woman “should be entitled, as much as man, to a liberal education,” she “should be trained professionally” – Alcott particularly thinks of “nursing” and “obstetrics” – and she should “be paid better for her labor.” He is less pleased with some of the more radical rhetoric for reasons of (gendered) decorum, as he expresses his indignation about “the remarks of Kelly Abby Foster about cutting throats in order to obtain rights.” He concedes that the remarks were made in the conditional, as Foster only proposed that “were cutting throats ever justifiable, it might be in the case of woman – downtrodden and enslaved as she is.” Still, Alcott insists that “such language should not have been uttered by female lips.” Alcott in particular supports women's rights to be trained as professional laborers, expressing his surprise “that this branch of social reform has not hitherto received more attention.”

“Half-Century Notes: No. 4 – Water, and Water Drinking” (November 1850)
This short article focuses almost entirely on Temperance, and the benefits of drinking nothing but pure water. Alcott discourages not only the use of alcohol, including beer, wine, and cider, but also of coffee and tea. The piece is notable for Alcott's emphasis on the intersecting and mutually reinforcing aspects of all social reform: “Whether, however, I lecture directly on temperance, or on my favorite topics of hygiene [which includes dietetics and digestion], education, domestic economy, female medical education, or moral reform, I am still laboring, as I trust, in the general cause.”

"Half-Century Notes: No. 8 – Martha's Vineyard" (April 1851)
Another report on lecturing about Temperance, this article is particularly interesting for Alcott's links between Temperance and the history of settler-induced alcoholism among the region's Indigenous inhabitants. The respective passage reads in full:

I heard a story among these islands, while I was there, which is quite interesting and I suppose true. Something like a hundred years ago, an old Indian chief residing there, finding that his people were deteriorating by their intemperance, called a council to see what was to be done to prevent it. The white people, he said, by their rum, are ruining us. The result was a law that whoever was found drunk, from that day forth, should be publicly whipped a certain number of lashes. This was the only correction they could think of. – The teetotal principle had not then been born.

A few days afterward the old Chief had occasion to go to New Bedford and the adjacent places on business. While there the white man's temptation proved too strong for him, and he became intoxicated. On his return to Martha's Vineyard, he summoned a council of his people, and confessed to them the whole affair. The law, he said, which was a wise one, was made for us all, – for me, as well as for you. I have been the first to break it. Let me receive the full measure of the punishment. He was accordingly punished as the law directed!

This, sir, so far as I know, is the history in brief of the first temperance society among us;

“Half-Century Notes: No. 13 – Wine and Flesh” (January 1852)
In this article Alcott returns to the topic of wine and meat. He clarifies that when he speaks of wine, he has in mind all fermented drinks (including, for example, cider and ale). He is convinced that the use of such drinks prompts a preference and desire for “high seasoned dishes,” particularly “flesh, fish, and their numerous cousins.” Luckily, Alcott writes, “the true principles of vegetarianism has [sic] been silently gaining ground.” He is convinced that Temperance needs to be supplemented with vegetarianism to achieve its goals, because alcohol-drinking and meat-eating tend to go together. “[T]ake both away,” he writes, “and persist in this for a few generations, and half the war against intemperance would cease.” Unfortunately, most physicians and religious leaders believe that “if we could put down excess, a small quantity of wine would be admissible.”

“Half-Century Notes: No. 24” (November 1852)
In this article Alcott advocates for general Temperance. Besides alcohol, coffee, and tea, he also explicitly mentions tobacco, opium, betel nut, and arsenic. He insists that “water is the best, nay the only drink God has given us” and that in order to abolish intemperance “all the faculties of the body and the faculties of the mind and soul” must be brought “into the service of truth and righteousness.” Alcott thus voices his conviction that social reform, including reform pertaining to physical health such as Temperance and vegetarianism, is a question of ethics and morality.