In 1850, a young Samuel Clemens, better known by his subsequent penname of Mark Twain, joined the Hannibal, Missouri chapter of the Cadets of Temperance, a juvenile temperance organization. According to his autobiography, he signed up not because of a fervent interest in temperance, but because of the organization’s uniforms. As he remembered: “The boys joined in order to be privileged to wear [a red merino sash]—the pledge part of the matter was of no consequence. It was so small in importance that contrasted with the sash it was, in effect, non-existent.”
Clemens was one of thousands of boys living in the United States and Canada in the 1850s to join the Cadets of Temperance, an offshoot of the adult temperance organization the Sons of Temperance. Juvenile temperance societies like the Cadets provided protection and guidance for boys in a period of their lives when they might begin drinking. Temperance literature emphasized that “the first drop” of alcohol a youth took was the beginning of a dangerous path towards destruction. Boys between the ages of twelve and eighteen applied to local sections of the Cadets under the supervision of an adult Son of Temperance. They pledged to abstain from alcohol and tobacco, and held regular meetings at which they had debates, collected dues, and reported on the misbehavior of their fellow Cadets. Cadets also marched in public events, such as Fourth of July parades, in the sashes which so beguiled Samuel Clemens.
One of these Cadets of Temperance sashes still exists at the Clements Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It is made of red fabric, trimmed with white ribbon, and adorned with a rosette of red, white, and blue ribbon, and a sequined star. Although the sequins are now tarnished and the cloth slightly moth-eaten, the sash is still an impressive sight. When members wore sashes like it at their meetings and at public events, they signaled their camaraderie with each other and their membership in a cause that was larger than themselves. The sashes, however, also emphasized the hierarchy within the society, as adult supervisors and teenage leaders wore more elaborate garb than rank and file members. This sash, with its shiny sequined star, is that of an officer rather than a common Cadet.
The Cadets of Temperance sash provides a window into the world of juvenile temperance, in which sashes and ceremony were an important part of their moral crusade.
Abigail Corcoran is (she/her/hers) is a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She works on histories of childhood and gender in the nineteenth-century United States. Her dissertation focuses on juvenile activist societies like the Cadets of Temperance.
