Reviewed by:

• In League Against King Alcohol: Native American Women and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 1874–1933 by Thomas J. Lappas
• Izumi Ishii

Drawing on years of extensive archival research, Thomas J. Lappas explores the work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in Indian communities. He focuses on Native American women who, as members of the WCTU, worked with white women for the cause of temperance at the turn of the twentieth century.

Lappas poses the question of why Native American women took an interest in the work of the WCTU and became members. By analyzing Indian women [End Page 351] leaders' own words, he concludes that their reasons for joining the organization reflected both their degree of acculturation and their strong will to preserve their distinctiveness as Indians. The organization's Christian foundation also motivated many Indian women to join. Native women were aware of the devastating effects of alcohol on their communities, and they believed that the WCTU could help solve the problems they faced. Native women's writings reveal that they witnessed and even suffered from domestic violence caused by excessive drinking, which also spurred them to join the WCTU. Unfortunately, Indian women were rarely visible as individuals except for their role in the Loyal Temperance Legions organized for children.

Being a member of the WCTU did not necessarily mean that Native women and their white counterparts acquired a better understanding of one another. The Union Signal and other WCTU publications helped perpetuate the stereotypical images of Indian savagery that offended the often well-educated Native members of the WCTU. The organization also weighed in on one of the most bitterly contested issues in Indian affairs at the turn of the twentieth century—the allotment of tribal land to individuals and the opening of surplus land to non-Indian homesteaders. Initially exempt from allotment, the five large Indian nations in eastern Oklahoma, known as Indian Territory, resisted extension of the policy to them. The national WCTU, however, passed a resolution supporting the merger of Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory WCTUs after Oklahoma statehood, a move that sorely disappointed Native members. In the end, the cause of temperance failed to forge ties of sympathy and friendship between Native WCTU women and white members. Instead, the WCTU found its strongest allies in Indian Territory among white missionaries rather than among Indian people.

No one would challenge the author's statement that "[s]imply telling the story of the WCTU and Native Americans is valuable" (p. 5). Yet the best chapters are the ones that deal with non-Native women activists working for Indians and their communities, rather than "Native American Women and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union" as the subtitle of the book indicates. The WCTU that Lappas depicts was not likely to be an organization where Indian women members and their white counterparts enjoyed a world of solidarity and sisterhood. Lappas's study reveals the intolerance that characterized the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, in aiming to attain its ultimate goals, at the turn of the twentieth century. To what extent did Native women contribute to the success in the WCTU's crusade against alcohol, and what roles did they play in the wide-ranging activities of the WCTU? In League Against King Alcohol: Native American Women and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 1874–1933 gives readers an incentive to seek further what the organization meant to the Indian women who worked with assimilationist white reformers in the struggle for sobriety and at the same time strove valiantly to preserve their Native identity and tribal sovereignty. [End Page 352]

审核人：

• 托马斯·J·拉帕斯（Thomas J. Lappas）在1874年至1933年的“反对酒精国王联盟：美国原住民妇女和妇女的基督教禁酒联盟”中
• 石井泉

基于多年的档案研究，托马斯·J·拉帕斯（Thomas J. Lappas）探索了印度基督教节制工会（WCTU）在印度社区中的工作。他专注于美国土著妇女，他们是WCTU的成员，在20世纪初与白人妇女一起节俭。

拉帕斯提出了一个问题，即为什么美洲原住民妇女对WCTU的工作产生兴趣并成为成员。通过分析印度妇女[末页351]他得出的结论是，他们加入该组织的原因既反映了他们的适应程度，又体现了他们保持印第安人特色的强烈意愿。该组织的基督教基金会也激励了许多印度妇女加入。土著妇女意识到酒精对社区的破坏性影响，他们相信WCTU可以帮助解决她们所面临的问题。土著妇女的著作表明，她们目睹了甚至因过度饮酒而遭受家庭暴力，这也促使她们加入了WCTU。不幸的是，除了在为儿童组织的忠诚节制军团中所扮演的角色外，印度妇女很少能以个人身份出现。

成为WCTU的成员并不一定意味着原住民妇女和白人同伴之间有了更好的了解。该联盟信号WCTU和其他WCTU出版物帮助使刻板印象的印度野蛮形象永久化，这些形象冒犯了经常受过良好教育的WCTU土著成员。该组织还参与了20世纪初印度事务中争议最激烈的问题之一：将部落土地分配给个人，将剩余土地开放给非印第安人的家园主。最初免于分配的俄克拉荷马州东部的五个大印度国家（被称为印度领土）拒绝将政策扩展到它们。但是，全国WCTU通过了一项决议，支持在俄克拉荷马州建国后合并印度领土和俄克拉荷马州WCTU，此举令土著成员感到非常失望。到底，节制的原因未能在WCTU土著妇女和白人成员之间建立起同情和友谊的纽带。取而代之的是，WCTU在印度领地中找到了最强大的盟友，他们是白人传教士，而不是印度人民。

没有人会质疑作者的说法，即“ [暗示] WCTU和美国原住民的故事很有价值”（第5页）。然而，最好的章节是针对在印第安人及其社区工作的非本地女性激进主义者的章节，而不是如书中的副标题所示的“本地美国女性和基督教徒节制工会”。拉帕斯描绘的WCTU不可能是一个印度女性成员及其白人同行享有团结与姐妹世界的组织。拉帕斯（Lappas）的研究揭示了女性基督教禁酒联盟的不宽容特征，目的是在20世纪初实现其最终目标。在WCTU反对酒精的运动中，土著妇女在多大程度上为成功做出了贡献，在1874年至1933年的“反对酒精大王：美国原住民妇女和基督教徒节制联盟”中，读者有动机去进一步探索该组织对与同化白人白人改革者一起在清醒和奋斗中工作的印度妇女意味着什么。同时竭力维护他们的原住民身份和部落主权。[第352页]