Temperance Plays for Radio or Stage

Temperance Plays for Radio or Stage

The publication of these radio plays was funded by May Bonine, a member of the local WCTU of Havre, Montana. WCTU members of that community had given radio programs of music, lectures, and plays for several years, with children’s parts supplied by local young people. Unlike nineteenth-century juvenile reciters, which took pride in the literary merit of their selections, Morgan prefaced his collection with a self-conscious disclaimer about his amateur status. He encouraged other communities to write and produce both radio and stage plays for young and old alike.

In Three Maids of My Town, three female protagonists named for the three virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity, discuss the impact of alcohol on the wealthy, middle-class, and poor residents of an unnamed city. Morgan modernized a long tradition of dramatizing the three virtues, a pervasive theme in nineteenth-century tableaux, dialogues, and pageants.

Morgan attempted to depict racial minorities sympathetically, but his plots draw on and perpetuate stereotypes. Native Americans are understood as being especially prone to drink, and alcohol is portrayed as contributing to the descent into a life of crime of an African American “gangster” from Chicago.

E. A. Morgan

E. A. Morgan, Temperance Plays for Radio or Stage (Nashville, Tennessee: The Parthenon Press, 1951).

Parthenon Press

1951