The National Temperance Orator

The National Temperance Orator

The National Temperance Orator is one of the many “reciters” compiled by Lizzie Penney for the National Temperance Society, for which Penney also wrote children’s stories. The collection contains prose, poetry, and dialogues for performers of both genders and all ages. The recitations proclaim that it was never too early for children to take the temperance pledge. In “The Little Boy’s Song,” a toddler sings: “I am a temperance boy / Just four years old, / And I love temperance / Better than gold.” Alongside pieces for young people were many political orations for adults, including “Indictment of the Traffic,” “Intemperance the Great Social Battle of the Age,” “Make it a Political Question,” and “Prohibition.” Contributors include many of the same authors as the other “reciters,” including WCTU members Julia Colman and Nellie Bradley, writers Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Josephine Pollard, and Alice Cary, and reformer Frances D. Gage, along with male temperance advocates, religious leaders, medical doctors, politicians, professors, and orators.

The National Temperance Orator blurs the line between recitation and drama. Some dialogues required staging that was almost as complex as parlor dramas: “Buy Your Own Goose,” a “dialogue” with eight characters of both genders and all ages, contains four scenes each with set changes and props. The collection also engages with the long tradition of satirizing Shakespeare. “The Seven Ages of Intemperance” originally appeared in comedy magazines during the 1830s. The speech parodies “The Seven Ages of Man,” the famous “All the world’s a stage” monologue from As You Like It, by relating every line to drinking: “All the world’s a bar-room / And all the men and women merely tipplers.” The selection ends with a grave warning about the lethal effects of laudanum.

Lizzie Penney

The National Temperance Orator. A New and Choice Collection of Prose and Poetical Articles and Selections, for Public Readings, Addresses, and Recitations, Together with A Series of Dialogues, Designed For the Use of all Temperance Workers and Speakers, Divisions, Lodges, Juvenile Temperance Societies, Schools, etc., etc. ed. L. Penney (New York: The National Temperance Society and Publication House, 1884).

National Temperance Society and Publication House

1884