Family Temperance Pledge (caption title)

Color lithograph, approx. 10 x 7.75 inches, trimmed flush. Near Fine with minor toning to verso. Featuring a vignette of an idealized domestic scene--a woman simultaneously attending to her child and her needlework, and a father in a smoking jacket reading a newspaper while his daughter looks on. An unused example of the lithograph "pledge" often tipped into family Bibles, the 12 reasons for signing target the broader realm of people who drink alcohol, but would not be considered drunkards--yet. "The idea of moderation is full of deceit, and our estimate of the power of our own will is usually a mistaken one," and, "Persons miscalculate their ability to drink in moderation and become slaves to the drinking habit before they are aware of it."