Early one morning, as I pulled myself up from the bathroom floor with a most terrible headache, I swore an oath to never drink again. I vowed to empty the rest of that demon vodka down the sink, thwarted only by the fact that I had drunk all of it the night before and there was none left to dispose of. I made a promise to myself to remain sober and self-possessed throughout the remainder of my days, and while I have thus far failed miserably in this endeavor, I nonetheless continue to derive strength and inspiration from the many images of drunken folly archived in The Picture Collection. Created during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when that most beloved of crusades, the temperance movement, gained particular momentum in the United States and Europe (capped off by that very successful and victorious era in U.S. history known as Prohibition), these images very acutely document the destructive and evil forces of alcohol. When I am overcome with temptation, which is always (I am swigging from a bottle of absinthe right now), I look at these images in order to be reminded of the foolishness of my ways, and now I am posting them online so that you, dear readers, will benefit as well. As these pictures make perfectly clear, without immediate intervention we will all soon be terrible mothers, fathers, wives and husbands, make spectacles of ourselves at fashionable parties, fall into debt and poverty, dress in rags, be mocked and jeered at by children, wind up arrested, in court, in prison and insane, commit murder and/or suicide, and be visited by devils while sleeping in our beds at night. Shall I go on? Of course not – you can see the end results for yourself.

Related: The Picture Collection's images of New York City Saloons