Today the name Carrie Nation came to mind; aka. Carry Nation or Carry A. Nation.

She was a robust woman, standing about six-feet, born in the mid-1800s that was a stern believer in prohibition and the temperance movement.

She believed that alcohol tore families and societies apart – as it did her own. She married a young man post the civil war named Charles Gloyd that unbeknownst to her, was a severe alcoholic. He was a functional alcoholic until he wasn’t. He died at the age of 29 while leaving Carry with her young child.

She remarried later to a preacher and lawyer named, David Nation in Kansas. There she got involved with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WTCU) – they who supported her beliefs regarding anti-alcoholism. Nation also supported women’s rights and the women’s suffrage movement, and she did not believe in wearing corsets as the structure was harmful to women’s bodies.

In 1880, Kansas was the first state to adopt a constitutional ban on selling alcohol; however, many saloons remained open and sold alcohol readily. Some of the women began singing and basically loitering around saloons and liquor stores singing hymns and preaching the ill-ways of alcohol.

Nation felt she needed to do something more. It is said that she got a call from God and encouragement from her husband. She then picked-up a hatchet, walked into the town’s saloon, and began breaking and smashing bottles of liquor while singing and praying.

The saloon townsmen often did not know what to do – they either backed away while she smashed the bottles and other times she was assaulted and brought to jail.

As soon as she could post bail, or her supporters posted bail for her, it didn’t take long for her to go into another saloon with her hatchet and smash up more bottles.

Carry started to travel, and speak about her temperance cause. Her reputation spread and soon saloons hung a sign that said: “All Nation’s are welcome but Carrie.” She was arrested roughly 30 times between 1900-1910 for her “hatchetations.” One time her bail amount was an equivalent of $15,000 today.

She soon got the idea to sell miniature souvenir hatchets and buttons to help fund her crusade as well as pay her jail-fines.

At one point, her husband could not support her violent ways and eventually distanced himself from her.

Carry went on to publish a biweekly newsletter called The Smasher’s Mail, The Hatchet newspaper, and wrote an autobiography.

Later in life after giving up her hatchetations – she bought a home called the “Hatchet Home” to help women who have fled their homes because of their alcoholic husbands.

In 1911, Nation collapsed while giving a speech and passed at the age of 64. She never saw a nationwide ban on alcohol as that didn’t take place until 1920 – eventually abolished in 1933. Nor that women’s vote until 1920.

“The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union later erected a stone inscribed “Faithful to the Cause of Prohibition, She Hath Done What She Could” and the name “Carry A. Nation”.

Carry Nation Home in Medicine Lodge, Kansas