Difference between revisions of "Carrie Nation" - New World Encyclopedia

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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.  She has been the topic of numerous books, articles and even a 1966 opera at the [[University of Kansas]].
 
'''Carrie Nation''' (November 25, 1846 – June 9, 1911) was a member of the [[temperance movement]]—the battles against alcohol in  pre-[[Prohibition]] America.  She has been the topic of numerous books, articles and even a 1966 opera at the [[University of Kansas]].
  
Born '''Carrie Moore''' in [[Garrard County, Kentucky]]<ref>{{cite book |last=Nation |first=Carry |title=The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext98/crntn10.txt |format=TXT |accessdate=2007-01-13}}}}</ref>, Nation got her myth-making last name from her second [[husband]], David Nation. A large woman (nearly 6 [[feet]] tall and 175 [[pound (mass)|pounds]]) she described herself as "a [[bulldog]] running along at the feet of [[Jesus]], barking at what He doesn't like",<ref name=mcqueen>{{cite book |last=McQueen |first=Keven |others=Ill. by Kyle McQueen |title=''Offbeat Kentuckians: Legends to Lunatics'' |chapter=Carrie Nation: Militant Prohibitionist |year=2001 |publisher=McClanahan Publishing House |location=[[Kuttawa, Kentucky]] |isbn=0913383805 }}</ref> and claimed a divine ordination to promote temperance by smashing up [[bar (establishment)|bars]].  
+
Born '''Carrie Moore''' in [[Garrard County, Kentucky]]<ref>{{cite book |last=Nation |first=Carry |title=The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext98/crntn10.txt |format=TXT |accessdate=2007-01-13}}}}</ref>, Nation got her myth-making last name from her second [[husband]], David Nation. A large woman (nearly 6 [[feet]] tall and 175 [[pound (mass)|pounds]]) she described herself as "a [[bulldog]] running along at the feet of [[Jesus]], barking at what He doesn't like", and claimed a divine ordination to promote temperance by smashing up [[bar (establishment)|bars]].  
  
 
The spelling of her first name is ambiguous; both "Carrie" and "Carry" are considered correct.  Official records list the former, and she herself 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]].{{Fact|date=February 2007}} Nation also operated under the alias Mary Pat Clarke.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}
 
The spelling of her first name is ambiguous; both "Carrie" and "Carry" are considered correct.  Official records list the former, and she herself 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]].{{Fact|date=February 2007}} Nation also operated under the alias Mary Pat Clarke.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}
  
==Early life and first marriage==
+
"A woman is stripped of everything by them [saloons]. Her husband is torn from her; she is robbed of her sons, her home, her food, and her virtue...Truly does the saloon make a woman bare of all things!"
 +
-Carry A. Nation
 +
<ref>''Kansas Historical Society''. [http://www.kshs.org/exhibits/carry/carry3.htm Home Defenders] Retrieved September 25, 2007.</ref>
  
Carrie Amelia Moore was born and grew up in Garrard County, [[Kentucky]].  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 eventually be buried in that town's cemetery. 
 
  
It is said that many of Nation's family members suffered from mental illness. Her mother went through periods where she had delusions of being [[Victoria of the United Kingdom|Queen Victoria]] <ref name=mcqueen />, and that young Carrie was often tended to in the slave quarters as a result.
 
  
In 1865 Carrie Moore met Dr. Charles Gloyd and the two fell in love. They were married on November 21, 1867. Carrie did not realize Gloyd had a drinking problem (in fact he was a severe aclo until after the marriage. Terribly heartbroken, and  Gloyd was, by all accounts, a severe [[alcoholism|alcoholic]]; they separated shortly before the birth of their daughter, Charlien, and he died less than a year later, in 1869. This brief, unhappy marriage fueled her disdain for alcohol; Nation later attributed her passion for fighting liquor to her experience with the heavy-drinking Gloyd.
 
  
==Second marriage and call from God==
 
Carrie Moore Gloyd acquired a teaching certificate, but was unable to support herself in this field. Taking care of her daughter and the mother of her former husband was a burden she could not handle alone. She prayed to God to send her a husband. Soon after she met Dr. David A. Nation, an attorney, minister and newspaper editor, nineteen years her senior. They were married on December 27, 1877. She believed he was the answer to her prayers and married him even though many counseled against due to the difference in their ages.
 
  
The family purchased a 1,700 acre cotton plantation on the [[San Bernard River]] in Brazoria County, [[Texas]]. However, neither knew much about farming and the venture failed. <ref> Nation, Carry Amelia. 2002. ''The use and need of the life of Carrie A. Nation''. McLean, Va: IndyPublish.com. ISBN 9781404337008 - also available on line via
+
==Early life and marriages==
[http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/hst/biography/TheUseandNeedoftheLifeofCarrieANation/chap6.html World Wide School] Retrieved September 25, 2007. </ref> 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 he became the Preacher at a Christian church. 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. <ref name=mcqueen />
+
Carrie Amelia Moore was born and grew up in Garrard County, [[Kentucky]]. She was in ill health throughout her childhood. Her family experienced several financial setbacks and moved several times, finally settling in Belton, [[Missouri]], where she would eventually be buried in that town's cemetery.
  
Nation felt desperate to save families from the experience she had and had witnessed countless times, that liquor destroyed not only individuals, but families as well. Unhappy with the lack of response to her efforts, she began to pray daily for further direction. On June 5, 1900, she experienced what she could only describe as a heavenly vision. In her own words;
+
It is said that many of her family members suffered from mental illness. Her mother experienced delusional periods in which she believed she was [[Victoria of the United Kingdom|Queen Victoria]]. As a result, young Carrie was often tended to in the slave quarters.
  
I poured out my grief in agony to God, in about this strain: "Oh Lord you see the treason in Kansas, they are going to break the mothers' hearts, they are going to send the boys to drunkards' graves and a drunkard's hell. I have exhausted my means, Oh Lord, you have plenty of ways. You have used the base things and the weak things, use me to save Kansas. I have but one life to give you, if I had a thousand, I would give them all, please show me something to do." 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." I was very much relieved and overjoyed and was determined to be, "obedient to the heavenly vision" (Acts 26:19).
+
In 1865 Carrie Moore met Dr. Charles Gloyd and the two fell in love. They were married on November 21, 1867. Carrie did not realize Gloyd had a drinking problem (in fact he was a severe [[alcoholism|alcoholic]]) until after the marriage took place. Terribly heartbroken, she understood that for the sake of their unborn child, she would have to separate from her husband. Their separation took place shortly before the birth of their daughter, Charlien. Gloyd died less than a year later, in 1869. This brief, unhappy marriage fueled her disdain for alcohol; Nation later attributed her passion for fighting liquor to her experience with the heavy-drinking Gloyd.
  
+
Carrie Moore Gloyd acquired a teaching certificate, but was unable to support herself in this field. Taking care of her daughter and the mother of her former husband was a burden she could not handle alone. She prayed to God to send her a husband. Soon after she met Dr. David A. Nation, an attorney, minister and newspaper editor, nineteen years her senior. They were married on December 27, 1877. She believed he was the answer to her prayers and married him even though many counseled against it due to the difference in their ages.
{{cquote|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."
 
  
<ref>''Kansas Historical Society''. [http://www.kshs.org/exhibits/carry/smashing.htm Carry's Inspiration for Smashing] Retrieved September 25, 2007.</ref>
+
The Nations purchased a 1,700 acre [[cotton]] plantation on the [[San Bernard River]] in Brazoria County, [[Texas]]. However, neither knew much about farming and the venture failed. <ref> Nation, Carry Amelia. 2002. ''The use and need of the life of Carrie A. Nation''. McLean, Va: IndyPublish.com. ISBN 9781404337008 - also available on line via
 +
[http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/hst/biography/TheUseandNeedoftheLifeofCarrieANation/chap6.html World Wide School] Retrieved September 25, 2007. </ref> Dr. Nation became involved in the [[Jaybird-Woodpecker War]], necessitating a move back north in 1889, this time to  Medicine Lodge, [[Kansas]], where he became the Preacher at a Christian church. Carrie ran a successful hotel.
  
 +
==Mission==
 +
It was while in Medicine Lodge that Carrie 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 such as "Good morning, destroyer of men's souls," to serenading saloon patrons with hymns on a hand organ.
  
 +
Nation felt desperate to save families from the experience she had and had witnessed countless times, that liquor destroyed not only individuals, but families as well. Unhappy with the lack of response to her efforts, she began to pray daily for further direction. On June 5, 1900, she experienced what she could only describe as a heavenly vision. In her own words;
  
 +
{{quotation|"I poured out my grief in agony to God, in about this strain: "Oh Lord you see the treason in Kansas, they are going to break the mothers' hearts, they are going to send the boys to drunkards' graves and a drunkard's hell. I have exhausted my means, Oh Lord, you have plenty of ways. You have used the base things and the weak things, use me to save Kansas. I have but one life to give you, if I had a thousand, I would give them all, please show me something to do."
  
 +
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.
  
Obedient to the revelation, Nation gathered a number of rocks &ndash; "smashers," she called them &ndash; 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.<ref name=mcqueen />
+
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." I was very much relieved and overjoyed and was determined to be, "obedient to the heavenly vision" (Acts 26:19)." <ref>''Kansas Historical Society''. [http://www.kshs.org/exhibits/carry/smashing.htm Carry's Inspiration for Smashing] Retrieved September 25, 2007.</ref>|Carrie Nation|IndyPublishers}}
 
+
----
+
Obedient to the revelation, Nation gathered a number of rocks &ndash; "smashers," &ndash; 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 the town of Kiowa, a [[tornado]] hit eastern Kansas. She understood this to be a sign of Heaven's approval of her actions.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Obedient to the revelation, Nation gathered several rocks &ndash; "smashers," she called them &ndash; 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.<ref name=mcqueen />
 
  
 
=="Hatchetations"==
 
=="Hatchetations"==
Line 50: Line 46:
  
 
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.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kshs.org/exhibits/carry/carry4.htm |title=Paying the Bills |publisher=Kansas State Historical Society |accessdate=2007-01-13}}</ref>
 
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.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kshs.org/exhibits/carry/carry4.htm |title=Paying the Bills |publisher=Kansas State Historical Society |accessdate=2007-01-13}}</ref>
 +
  
 
==Later life and death==
 
==Later life and death==
Line 65: Line 62:
 
*''Carry A. Nation : Retelling The Life'' (2001) by Fran Grace
 
*''Carry A. Nation : Retelling The Life'' (2001) by Fran Grace
  
==References==
+
==Notes==
<div class="references-small"><references/></div>
+
<references/>
  
==See also==
 
*[[List of famous tall women]]
 
*[[Temperance movement]]
 
  
==External links==
+
==Sources and further reading==
 +
*{{gutenberg author|id=Nation+Carry+Amelia+(1846-1911)|name=Carry Nation}}
 
*[http://www.kshs.org/exhibits/carry/carry1.htm Carry A. Nation: The Famous and Original Bar Room Smasher] - Kansas State Historical Society
 
*[http://www.kshs.org/exhibits/carry/carry1.htm Carry A. Nation: The Famous and Original Bar Room Smasher] - Kansas State Historical Society
 
*[http://texashistory.unt.edu/search.tkl?q=carry+nation&search=Search&fulltext_select=ON&format=&collection=&institution=&document_type=&date1=Anytime&date2=Anytime&type=form Photos of Carry Nation] - Fort Bend Museum, hosted by the Portal to Texas History
 
*[http://texashistory.unt.edu/search.tkl?q=carry+nation&search=Search&fulltext_select=ON&format=&collection=&institution=&document_type=&date1=Anytime&date2=Anytime&type=form Photos of Carry Nation] - Fort Bend Museum, hosted by the Portal to Texas History
*{{gutenberg author|id=Nation+Carry+Amelia+(1846-1911)|name=Carry Nation}}
+
*McQueen, Keven. 2001. ''Offbeat Kentuckians: Legends to Lunatics''. Kuttawa, KY: McClanahan Pub. House. ISBN 0913383805
*[http://www.kshs.org/exhibits/carry/carry1.htm Carry A. Nation: The Famous and Original Bar Room Smasher] - Kansas State Historical Society
+
 
*[http://texashistory.unt.edu/search/?q=carry+nation&t=fulltext Photos of Carry Nation] - Fort Bend Museum, hosted by the Portal to Texas History
+
 
  
[[Category:1846 births|Nation, Carrie]]
+
[[Category:History and biography]]
[[Category:1911 deaths|Nation, Carrie]]
+
[[Category:United States]]
[[Category:People from Kentucky|Nation, Carrie]]
 
[[Category:American activists|Nation, Carrie]]
 
[[Category:People from Kansas City|Nation, Carrie]]
 
[[Category:Vaudeville performers|Nation, Carrie]]
 
  
 
{{credit|121813793}}
 
{{credit|121813793}}

Revision as of 05:43, 25 September 2007


File:CarryNation.jpeg
Temperance advocate Carrie Nation with her weapons; her Bible and her hatchet.

Carrie Nation (November 25, 1846 – June 9, 1911) was a member of the temperance movement—the battles against alcohol in pre-Prohibition America. She has been the topic of numerous books, articles and even a 1966 opera at the University of Kansas.

Born Carrie Moore in Garrard County, Kentucky[1], Nation got her myth-making last name from her second husband, David Nation. A large woman (nearly 6 feet tall and 175 pounds) she described herself as "a bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn't like", 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 she herself 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.[citation needed] Nation also operated under the alias Mary Pat Clarke.[citation needed]

"A woman is stripped of everything by them [saloons]. Her husband is torn from her; she is robbed of her sons, her home, her food, and her virtue...Truly does the saloon make a woman bare of all things!" -Carry A. Nation [2]


Early life and marriages

Carrie Amelia Moore was born and grew up in Garrard County, Kentucky. She was in ill health throughout her childhood. Her family experienced several financial setbacks and moved several times, finally settling in Belton, Missouri, where she would eventually be buried in that town's cemetery.

It is said that many of her family members suffered from mental illness. Her mother experienced delusional periods in which she believed she was Queen Victoria. As a result, young Carrie was often tended to in the slave quarters.

In 1865 Carrie Moore met Dr. Charles Gloyd and the two fell in love. They were married on November 21, 1867. Carrie did not realize Gloyd had a drinking problem (in fact he was a severe alcoholic) until after the marriage took place. Terribly heartbroken, she understood that for the sake of their unborn child, she would have to separate from her husband. Their separation took place shortly before the birth of their daughter, Charlien. Gloyd died less than a year later, in 1869. This brief, unhappy marriage fueled her disdain for alcohol; Nation later attributed her passion for fighting liquor to her experience with the heavy-drinking Gloyd.

Carrie Moore Gloyd acquired a teaching certificate, but was unable to support herself in this field. Taking care of her daughter and the mother of her former husband was a burden she could not handle alone. She prayed to God to send her a husband. Soon after she met Dr. David A. Nation, an attorney, minister and newspaper editor, nineteen years her senior. They were married on December 27, 1877. She believed he was the answer to her prayers and married him even though many counseled against it due to the difference in their ages.

The Nations purchased a 1,700 acre cotton plantation on the San Bernard River in Brazoria County, Texas. However, neither knew much about farming and the venture failed. [3] Dr. Nation became involved in the Jaybird-Woodpecker War, necessitating a move back north in 1889, this time to Medicine Lodge, Kansas, where he became the Preacher at a Christian church. Carrie ran a successful hotel.

Mission

It was while in Medicine Lodge that Carrie 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 such as "Good morning, destroyer of men's souls," to serenading saloon patrons with hymns on a hand organ.

Nation felt desperate to save families from the experience she had and had witnessed countless times, that liquor destroyed not only individuals, but families as well. Unhappy with the lack of response to her efforts, she began to pray daily for further direction. On June 5, 1900, she experienced what she could only describe as a heavenly vision. In her own words;

"I poured out my grief in agony to God, in about this strain: "Oh Lord you see the treason in Kansas, they are going to break the mothers' hearts, they are going to send the boys to drunkards' graves and a drunkard's hell. I have exhausted my means, Oh Lord, you have plenty of ways. You have used the base things and the weak things, use me to save Kansas. I have but one life to give you, if I had a thousand, I would give them all, please show me something to do."

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." I was very much relieved and overjoyed and was determined to be, "obedient to the heavenly vision" (Acts 26:19)." [4]

Carrie Nation, IndyPublishers

Obedient to the revelation, Nation gathered a number of rocks – "smashers," – 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 the town of Kiowa, a tornado hit eastern Kansas. She understood this to be a sign of Heaven's approval of her actions.

"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."[5]

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.[6]


Later life and death

Nation published a bi-weekly newsletter called The Smasher's Mail, a newspaper titled The Hatchet, and later in life appeared in vaudeville. [5]

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 Carry A. Nation (1905) by Carry 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

Notes

  1. Nation, Carry. The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation (TXT). Retrieved 2007-01-13. }}
  2. Kansas Historical Society. Home Defenders Retrieved September 25, 2007.
  3. Nation, Carry Amelia. 2002. The use and need of the life of Carrie A. Nation. McLean, Va: IndyPublish.com. ISBN 9781404337008 - also available on line via World Wide School Retrieved September 25, 2007.
  4. Kansas Historical Society. Carry's Inspiration for Smashing Retrieved September 25, 2007.
  5. 5.0 5.1 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named mcqueen
  6. Paying the Bills. Kansas State Historical Society. Retrieved 2007-01-13.


Sources and further reading

Credits

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2nd EDITION


Carrie Nation (November 25, 1846 – June 9, 1911) was a member of the temperance movement—the battles against alcohol in pre-Prohibition America. 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]


"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.[2] 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.[3] She was promptly arrested, fined $500 ($11,500 in 2006 dollars), and ordered by a judge to leave Kansas City and never return.[4]

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. [5] 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. [6]

Nation applauded the assination of President William McKinley in 1901 because she believed that he secretly drank alcohol and that drinkers always got what they deserved. [7]

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.[8]

At one time there was a Carrie Nations restaraunt located in Augusta Georgia

There is a bar named Carry Nations in Los Gatos, California.

Credits

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  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 McQueen, Keven (2001). "Carrie Nation: Militant Prohibitionist", Offbeat Kentuckians: Legends to Lunatics, Ill. by Kyle McQueen, Kuttawa, Kentucky: McClanahan Publishing House. ISBN 0913383805. 
  2. Paying the Bills. Kansas State Historical Society. Retrieved 2007-01-13.
  3. "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
  4. "Mrs. Nation Barred from Kansas City," The New York Times, April 16, 1901
  5. Carry A. Nation: A National and International Figure. Kansas State Historical Society. Retrieved 2007-08-22.
  6. http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/Controversies/1124913901.html Temperance Movement Groups and Leaders in the U.S.
  7. http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/Controversies/1124913901.html Temperance Movement Groups and Leaders in the U.S.
  8. CarryNation.org