Fighting alcoholism among railway workers in the light of early 20th Century Polish-language temperance publications

AbstractIntroductionThe temperance magazines issued between 1843 and 1914 in Polish lands and among the Polish diaspora in Germany and USA constitute a barely known, and thus rarely used, research source on the history of addictions, including of course alcoholism. The purpose of the article is to present how the creators and correspondents of Polish-language temperance periodicals considered the problem of railway workers’ alcoholism and their attempts to overcome the habit.MethodThe main research method employed was analysis of press content (qualitative method). The quantitative method was abandoned due to the small number of texts available for the analysis. A historical and critical method of source analysis as well as chronological-and-problem analysis also proved quite useful.Discussion and conclusionsThe Polish-language temperance periodicals provide, among other things, valuable information referring to as yet unknown though essential problem of fighting alcoholism among railway workers in Europe, USA and the Polish territories of the Three Partitions