Unusual Antique Sunday School Temperance Pledge: Wine, Beer, Cider, Tobacco--and Opium! baby Certainly made as a barn

Certainly made as a barn hook

I never cease to be amazed by the laborious precision of antique Scherenschnitte designs like these

and handles on either side to which a string was once attached

And then handwritten in pencil on the back of the postcard

Unusual Antique Sunday School Temperance Pledge: Wine, Beer, Cider, Tobacco--and Opium! baby Certainly made as a barnThis 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