"Signing the Pledge" tableau diagram

"Signing the Pledge" tableau diagram

Temperance Tableaux

In his popular parlor guide The Sociable, George Arnold included a three-part series of temperance tableaux that contrasts the impact of alcoholism on a family with the benefits of a sober life. The series begins with “The Drunkard’s Home.” A father “is stretched upon the ground, insensible from drink,” and the set “is to denote, as much as possible, misery and want. The woman to have hollow eyes and sunken cheeks. The children upon the straw are to have bare arms, and to be ‘made up,’ so as to appear wretchedly thin and emaciated.” This scene is followed by “Singing the Pledge,” which depicts a temperance advocate convincing the father to foreswear drinking. Signing the temperance pledge – an act that transformed writing itself into performance – was a central feature of temperance meetings and a pervasive motif throughout temperance literature. The series finishes with “The Temperance Home,” in which happiness has returned to the family circle. Arnold described each tableau in detail and plotted the positions of the characters on a diagram.

George Arnold, The Sociable; or, One Thousand and One Home Amusements... (New York: Dick and Fitzgerald, 1858), 165.