13 July 2012
Last updated at 12:45
The rise of the temperance movement in north-west England is being investigated in an exhibition at the People's History Museum in Manchester.
Demon Drink? Temperance and the Working Class looks at the movement's 150-year history in the region and centres around the University of Central Lancashire's Livesey Collection of temperance-related posters, pictures and artworks.
The collection takes its name from Joseph Livesey, a Preston philanthropist who the university's Dr Annemarie McAllister said was widely regarded as the founder of the temperance movement, which spread to the rest of the country in the mid-19th Century.
She said the movement had become important in the region because "drinking and drunkenness was a real problem in industrial areas", with Blackburn becoming known as "the most drunken town in the country" in the 1830s.
Dr McAllister said that while the temperance movement was embraced across the country, it was particularly strong in the North West, where people continued to support it long after the numbers "taking the pledge" not to drink elsewhere began to dwindle.
She said a good example of how strong the movement was in the UK was in the membership of the Band of Hope group, a children's organisation which, around the time of World War I, had 3.5 million members, more than half the school age children in the country at the time.
Demon Drink? Temperance and the Working Class, which also includes historical artefacts such as Joseph Livesey's rattle alongside the images, is at the People's History Museum in Manchester until 24 February 2013.