ABSTRACT
Lucy Stone’s words to her husband clearly demonstrate that the culture of the self-made man existed alongside other temperance cultures and visions in the antebellum movement. Stone viewed temperance not in terms of white, middle-class male achievement, identity, or authority but in terms of the exclusivity of that world in its denial of independence, individuality, and opportunity to those outside its boundaries. For Stone, temperance underscored the dignity and rights of all human beings, not that of a single group.
