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Carrie Nation (November 25, 1846 – June 9, 1911) was a member of
the temperance movement—the battles against alcohol in
pre-Prohibition America—particularly noted for promoting her
viewpoint through vandalism. On many occasions, Nation would enter
an alcohol-serving establishment, and attack the bar with a
hatchet. She has been the topic of numerous books, articles and
even a 1966 opera at the University of Kansas.
Nation was a large woman nearly 6 feet (180 cm) tall and
weighing 175 pounds (80 kg); she described herself as "a bulldog
running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn't
like",[1] and claimed a divine ordination to promote temperance by
smashing up bars.
The spelling of her first name is ambiguous; both "Carrie" and
"Carry" are considered correct. Official records list the former,
and Nation used that spelling most of her life; the latter was used
by her father in the family Bible. Upon beginning her campaign
against liquor in the early 20th century, she adopted the name
Carry A. Nation mainly for its value as a slogan, and had it
registered as a trademark in the state of Kansas. Nation also
operated under the alias Mary Pat Clarke.[citation needed]
Contents
1 Early life and first marriage
2 Second marriage and call from God
3 "Hatchetations"
4 Later life and death
5 Works about Nation
6 Cultural references
7 See also
8 References
Early life and first marriage
Carrie Moore was born in Garrard County, Kentucky[2]. She was in
ill health much of the time; her family experienced several
financial setbacks and moved several times, finally settling in
Belton, Missouri, where she would later be buried.
Many of Nation's family members suffered from mental illness.
Her mother went through periods where she had delusions of being
Queen Victoria[1], and young Carrie often tended to the slave
quarters as a result.
In 1865, she met Dr. Charles Gloyd, and they were married on
November 21, 1867. Gloyd was, by all accounts, a severe alcoholic;
they separated shortly before the birth of their daughter,
Charlien, and he died less than a year later, in 1869. Nation
attributed her passion for fighting liquor to her failed first
marriage to heavy-drinking Gloyd.
Second marriage and call from God
Carry acquired a teaching certificate but was unable to make ends
meet in this field. She then met Dr. David A. Nation, an attorney,
minister and newspaper editor, nineteen years her senior. They were
married on December 27, 1877. The family purchased a 1,700 acre
(690 ha) cotton plantation on the San Bernard River in Brazoria
County, Texas, but both knew little about farming and the venture
was unsuccessful.[2]Dr. Nation became involved in the
Jaybird-Woodpecker War and as a result was forced to move back
north in 1889, this time to Medicine Lodge, Kansas, where David
found work preaching at a Christian church, and Carrie ran a
successful hotel.
It was while in Medicine Lodge that she began her temperance
work. Nation started a local branch of the Women's Christian
Temperance Union and campaigned for the enforcement of Kansas' ban
on the sales of liquor. Her methods escalated from simple protests
to greeting bartenders with pointed remarks like "Good morning,
destroyer of men's souls," to serenading saloon patrons with hymns
on a hand organ.[1]
Dissatisfied with the results of her efforts, Nation began to
pray to God for direction. On June 5, 1900, she felt she received
her answer in the form of a heavenly vision. As she described
it,
“ The next morning I was awakened by a voice which seemed to me
speaking in my heart, these words, "GO TO KIOWA," and my hands were
lifted and thrown down and the words, "I'LL STAND BY YOU." The
words, "Go to Kiowa," were spoken in a murmuring, musical tone, low
and soft, but "I'll stand by you," was very clear, positive and
emphatic. I was impressed with a great inspiration, the
interpretation was very plain, it was this: "Take something in your
hands, and throw at these places in Kiowa and smash them."[3] ”
Obedient to the revelation, Nation gathered several rocks –
"smashers," she called them – and proceeded to Dobson's Saloon.
Announcing "Men, I have come to save you from a drunkard's fate,"
began to destroy the saloon's stock with her cache of rocks. After
similarly destroying two other saloons in Kiowa, a tornado hit
eastern Kansas. This she took as divine approval of her
actions.[1]
"Hatchetations"
Nation continued her destructive ways in Kansas, her fame spreading
through her growing arrest record. After a raid in Wichita, her
husband joked that she should use a hatchet next time for maximum
damage. Nation replied, "That's the most sensible thing you have
said since I married you."[1]
Alone or accompanied by hymn-singing women, she would march into
a bar and sing and pray, while smashing bar fixtures and stock with
a hatchet. Between 1900 and 1910, she was arrested some 30 times
for "hatchetations," as she came to call them. Nation paid her jail
fines from lecture-tour fees and sales of souvenir hatchets.[4] In
April of 1901, Nation came to Kansas City, Missouri, a city known
for its wide opposition to the temperance movement, and smashed
liquor in various bars on 12th street in Downtown Kansas City.[5]
She was promptly arrested, fined $500 ($11,500 in 2006 dollars),
and ordered by a judge to leave Kansas City and never
return.[6]
Later life and death
Nation's anti-alcohol activities became well known, with the slogan
"All Nations Welcome But Carrie" becoming a bar-room staple. [7]
She published a biweekly newsletter called The Smasher's Mail, a
newspaper titled The Hatchet, and later in life exploited her name
by appearing in vaudeville, [1] selling photographs of herself,
charging to lecture, and marketing miniature hatchets. [8.]
Nation applauded the assassination of President William McKinley
in 1901 because she believed that he secretly drank alcohol and
that drinkers always got what they deserved. [9]
Near the end of her life, she moved to Eureka Springs, Arkansas,
where she founded the home known as Hatchet Hall. A spring just
across the street from the house is named after her.
She collapsed during a speech in a Eureka Springs park and was
taken to a hospital in Leavenworth, Kansas. She died there on June
9, 1911, and was buried in an unmarked grave in Belton City
Cemetery in Belton, Missouri. The Women's Christian Temperance
Union later erected a stone inscribed "Faithful to the Cause of
Prohibition, She Hath Done What She Could."
Works about Nation
The Use and Need of the Life of Carrie A. Nation (1905) by Carrie
A. Nation
Carry Nation (1929) by Herbert Asbury
Cyclone Carry: The Story of Carry Nation (1962) by Carleton
Beals
Vessel of Wrath: The Life and Times of Carry Nation (1966) by
Robert Lewis Taylor
Carry A. Nation: Retelling The Life (2001) by Fran Grace
Cultural references
The girl-band in the 1970 exploitation movie Beyond the Valley of
the Dolls is named The Carrie Nations.
The fictional Carry Nation High School is the main setting of
the 2007 movie Bratz.
Holly, Michigan holds an annual Carry Nation festival on the
weekend after Labor Day, "in honor of the great prohibitionist's
visit to Holly, when it was a booming railroad town riddled with
taverns and ladies of ill repute." The festival consists of a
parade, pageants, and multiple sporting, craft, and talent events.
Local citizen Jamie Grimaldi holds an annual block party as part of
the celebration. At one time there was a Carrie Nations restaurant
located in Augusta, Georgia
There is a bar named Carry Nations in Los Gatos, California,
started by the inventor of the Pet Rock, Gary Dahl.
For several years, in the 1970's and 1980's the Silver Dollar
City (an amusement park in Branson, MO) "saloon show" featured a
fictional Carrie A. Nation. Halfway into the show, she would burst
in wielding a hatchet and break up the saloon show.
See also
Temperance movement
References
^ a b c d e f McQueen, Keven (2001). "Carrie Nation: Militant
Prohibitionist", Offbeat Kentuckians: Legends to Lunatics, Ill. by
Kyle McQueen, Kuttawa, Kentucky: McClanahan Publishing House. ISBN
0913383805.
^ a b Nation, Carry. The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A.
Nation (TXT). Retrieved on 2007-01-13. }}
^ Carry's Inspiration for Smashing. Kansas State Historical
Society. Retrieved on 2007-01-13.
^ Paying the Bills. Kansas State Historical Society. Retrieved on
2007-01-13.
^ "Mrs. Nation Fired in Police Court: Judge McAuley Assesses the
Joint-Smasher $500 and Orders Her out of Town," The Kansas City
World, April 15, 1901
^ "Mrs. Nation Barred from Kansas City," The New York Times, April
16, 1901
^ Carry A. Nation: A National and International Figure. Kansas
State Historical Society. Retrieved on 2007-08-22.
^ ("http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/Controversies/1124913901.html"
target="_blank">visit link) Temperance Movement Groups and
Leaders in the U.S.
^ ("http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/Controversies/1124913901.html"
target="_blank">visit link) Temperance Movement Groups and
Leaders in the U.S.
Carry A. Nation: The Famous and Original Bar Room Smasher - Kansas
State Historical Society
Photos of Carry Nation - Fort Bend Museum, hosted by the Portal to
Texas History
Works by Carry Nation at Project Gutenberg