This book examines the role of temperance drama in American theatre and compares the American genre to its British counterpart.

John W. Frick is Associate Professor of Drama at the University of Virginia. He is author of New York's First Theatrical Center: The Rialto at Union Square, co-editor of The Directory of Historic American Theatres and Theatrical Directors: A Biographical Dictionary and is a contributing author to The Cambridge History of American Theatre (1999). He has published numerous articles and reviews in, among others, The Drama Review, Theatre Journal, The Journal of American Drama and Theatre and The New England Theatre Journal. He has worked Off-Off Broadway as a dramaturg and as a stage manager with theatre and dance companies in New York.

List of figures; Acknowledgements; Introduction: A complex causality of neglect; 1. 'He drank from the poisoned cup': temperance reform in nineteenth-century America; 2. 'Nine-tenths of all kindness ...': literature, the theatre, and the spirit of reform; 3. 'Every odium within one word': early American temperance drama and British prototypes; 4. Reform comes to Broadway: temperance on America's mainstream stages; 5. 'In the halls': Temperance entertainments following the Civil War; 6. Epilogue: 'Theatrical 'Dry Rot'?': or what price the anti-saloon league?; Appendix: nineteenth-century temperance plays; Notes; Bibliography; Index.