Unusual Antique Sunday School Temperance Pledge: Wine, Beer, Cider, Tobacco--and Opium! boy with bicycle as if to say there

as if to say there is always a way

a different species entirely from the later stereocards with images printed on the card

It features pretty incised detailing around the perimeter of the top

"which surely was the cost of it

as I believe is the case with this painting

Unusual Antique Sunday School Temperance Pledge: Wine, Beer, Cider, Tobacco--and Opium! boy with bicycle as if to say thereThis just struck me as a fun little bit of history a Sunday School temperance pledge, c. 1880s I believe, which not only includes abstention from alcohol (wine, beer and cider) but also from tobacco and, most uncommonly, opium! These were a important component of the temperance movement in the 19th and early 20th century, and were often signed in public settings and organizational contexts, Sunday schools among them, to heighten accountability. I