Ephemera Promoting Scottish Elocutionist and Lecturer Bro. D.G. Lawson Voluntarily inmate at CT Insane Asylum to overcome appetite for Rum

Willimantic, Connecticut: D.G. Lawson, 1877. Very good. Spotting, water staining to envelope. Letter folds to one of the pamphlets.. Ephemera promoting Scottish Elocutionist and lecturer D.G. Lawson, with original handwritten note from Lawson himself promoting his lectures. Lawson voluntarily checked himself into the Connecticut State Insane Asylum in the 1870s "as a last hope to overcome an uncontrollable appetite for Rum", and made his living lecturing on the topic of temperance and his time at the asylum. Sadly, he did not stay sober long; an 1887 story in the Hartford Courant, shows that not a decade later he would fall victim again to his alcoholism: "About a dozen years ago Mr. D.G. Lawson same here from Fairfield county and was, at his request, place in the state hospital in order that he might not be able to reach a grog shop ... After being this fenced in from liquor saloons for about one year, he thought that he had so far overcome his appetite for alcohol that it would be safe for him to come out of the institution. He therefore left the asylum and joined a local temperance society, but the fifty saloons in Middletown proved stronger than his good resolutions and he fell. Again he signed the pledge and again he fell..." (Hartford Courant, 10 Mar. 1887).

Two printed bifolia measuring 5.75" by 3.25" and 8.5" by 5.5" with contemporary ink manuscript. Housed in original hand-addressed envelope measuring 3.25" by 6 (Inventory #: 23000411)