Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Records: Committee on Alcohol and Other Drugs and its predecessors (1881-1978)

A request was made to the Hicksite Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1881 that a committee be formed to spread knowledge about the dangers of alcoholic stimulants. The first meeting of the joint committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting on Temperance took place 5th month 13th, 1881. The Joint Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting On Temperance and Intoxicating Beverages was appointed 5th month 13th 1886. An Executive Committee was also appointed. 6th Month 6th, 1888, the Executive Committee was discontinued and the Four Standing Committees were directed to the General Committee. The Committee on Legislation was formed on that date. On 5th month 13th, 1892, the Joint Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting On Temperance and Intoxicating Beverages was merged with the Committees on Indian Affairs and Education of the Colored People of the South into the Joint Committee on Philanthropic Labor appointed by the Yearly Meeting, where it became a subcommittee titled Committee on Temperance and Tobacco.

The Friends Temperance Association, affiliated with the Orthodox Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, began around 1880. The Orthodox and Hicksite temperance associations were merged in 1932 as the Friends Temperance Association. The name was changed to Friends Temperance Committee of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1949, and to the Committee on Alcohol Problems in 1966. A Meeting on Social Concerns of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting was approved in 1969; although the Alcohol Problems Committee was originally slated to be merged into this new administrative structure, the merger was never completed. Its name was changed again in 1975 to the Committee on Alcohol and Other Drugs. It continued to operate on a reduced scale until it was finally laid down in 1978 by Representative Meeting.

Main activities of the associations throughout their histories included pamphlet distribution, political petitioning, and educational programs in elementary and high schools concerning the dangers of alcohol.