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Temperance lives : life assurance, drink, and medicine in Britain, 1840-1918 / James Kneale.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Kneale, James, author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Temperance--Great Britain--History.
- Temperance.
- Life insurance--Great Britain--History.
- Life insurance.
- Great Britain.
- Genre:
- History
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource
- Place of Publication:
- London : Bloomsbury Academic, 2025.
- Summary:
- This book explains how the rise of temperance life assurance affected ideas surrounding the dangers of drinking and abstinence between 1840 and 1918. James Kneale examines how temperance life insurance - initially a speculative business venture - evolved into a social experiment that played a crucial role in persuading ordinary people, doctors, and insurance firms that abstaining from alcohol was safer than drinking it. Drawing from archival materials, Kneale analyses contemporary stories from teetotallers and high-street temperance businesses, and investigates the broader impact on 'temperance towns' such as Manchester, Exeter, and the Pendle area. By charting the evolution of the first temperance life assurance firm (UKT) from its difficult beginnings, to being the eighth largest British life assurance firm by the 1890s, the author demonstrates to readers how quickly social attitudes surrounding teetotalism changed, and why.
- Contents:
- Introduction : A man walks into a life assurance office
- Ordinary temperance
- Temperance towns
- Experiments : Thin and watery and mentally cranked
- Statistics and forms : Those that don’t drink don’t die so fast
- Networks : Proselytizing fervour, minute inquisitorial inquiry
- Improvement : A very business-like argument
- Ordinary lives : The sceptre sample
- Medicine : An institution for educating the medical men
- Temperance life assurance and the new moderationism.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Other Format:
- Print version: Kneale, James. Temperance lives
- ISBN:
- 9781350529748
- 1350529745
- 9781350529731
- 1350529737
- 9781350529724
- 1350529729
- OCLC:
- 1520507031
- Publisher Number:
- CIPO000305719
- Access Restriction:
- Restricted for use by site license
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