Abstract
This article analyses the tensions between town and countryside through the development of the temperance idea in the Nordic countries. During the period 1880 to 1930, the prime foothold of the Nordic temperance movement was changed: it developed from an urban to a predominantly rural movement. This change is visible not least in the Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish referendums concerning prohibition, where the countryside is markedly more pro-prohibition than the towns. The relocation from town to countryside is not only geographical, but it also contains an ideological shift within the temperance movement. Started in towns, the movement was working classes' direct answer to the growing public drunkenness and an instrument used by the upwardly striving middle-class to discipline workers. Later, when the temperance movement shifts its centre of gravity to the countryside, it becomes a broad, cultural and conservative movement.
During the early 20th century, the temperance question was an important symbolic question and functioned as a social, political and cultural marker and thus mobilised a number of social groups.
The conclusion is that one should not talk about one single movement or one temperance ideology. The common denominator was that the temperance question served as a symbol and mark of identity, as a manifestation of the border between us and them.