These are temperance pledge cards. Since about 1830, hundreds of thousands of Canadians have signed such cards promising never to drink alcoholic beverages. They were distributed to school children as soon as they could sign their names, as well as to church members, reformed drinkers, and to the converted at mass temperance rallies. They were the foundation stone of the prohibition movement, the largest popular movement in Canadian history. Most provinces were actually under prohibition law from about 1916 to the mid-1920s. One province, Prince Edward Island, was "dry" from 1901 to 1948.
