The Murphy Temperance Movement Sweeps Aberdeen
Thomas E. Murphy leads a massive revival at the opera house, securing 700 pledges for the temperance cause.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Last Friday evening, Thomas E. Murphy, son and disciple of the great temperance advocate Francis Murphy, opened a campaign in the Methodist church. The church was crowded to its utmost capacity, and many signed the pledge. Monday and Tuesday nights the meetings were held in the opera house, where both the auditorium and galleries were crowded. Monday evening alone, eighty-nine persons signed the pledge. By the conclusion of the series, about 700 persons had signed, and the promoters, including the W.C.T.U., were greatly encouraged by the success of the 'Murphy movement.'
“Mrs. Murphy, a most charming woman heartily in sympathy with her husband's life work, accompanies and aids him at the meetings by tying on the ribbons.”
The temperance movement in the 1890s was a powerful civic force in Washington, serving as both a moral crusade and an early organized political effort by women. This fervor anticipates the statewide Prohibition laws that would follow two decades later.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.