Carry Nation Click to enlarge

• Born: 25 November 1846
• Birthplace: Garrard County, Kentucky
• Died: 9 June 1911
• Best Known As: Hatchet-wielding champion of alcohol prohibition

Name at birth: Carrie Amelia Moore

Carry Nation joined the Women's Christian Temperance Union in 1899 to help in the fight against alcohol. By 1900 she had made a name for herself as an aggressive supporter of prohibition who would use use rocks, hammers or hatchets to destroy saloons and their liquor. Nation and her tactics were controversial even within the temperance movement. She was arrested 30 times between 1900 and 1910, but her antics drew national attention to the issue of alcohol prohibition in the United States. She died in 1911, but her efforts paid off in 1919 with the passage of the 18th Amendment banning "intoxicating liquors." The era known as Prohibition lasted until 1933, when the 21st Amendment repealed the ban. Her memoir, The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation, was published in 1905.

Nation was married twice: to the alcoholic Dr. Charles Gloyd (1865-69) and then to David A. Nation (1877-1901). Some confusion exists over the spelling of Nation's first name; official records seem to indicate that she was originally named Carrie, but in later years she adopted Carry and liked to say that her movement would help carry a nation.

The actions of Carry Amelia Moore Nation (1846-1911), American temperance reformer and moral agitator, helped bring on the prohibition era.

Carry Amelia Moore was born in Garrard County, Ky., on Nov. 25, 1846, into a well-to-do slave-holding household. She was raised in an intensely religious atmosphere. On her mother's side there was evidence of eccentricity and insanity, and Carry's youth mixed emotionalism with stern suppression. The Moores moved a number of times, and during the Civil War her father lost his fortune. In 1865 the family settled in Belton, Mo. Carry earned a teaching certificate at the state normal school.

In 1867 Carry married Dr. Charles Gloyd. He soon proved an irresponsible alcoholic, and though she loved him and was pregnant, she returned home. He died shortly after. Her child, born weak of mind, was an expense and trouble for years. After teaching school for a few years, Carry married David Nation, a lawyer, minister, and journalist, in 1877.

The Nations moved to Medicine Lodge, Kans. In 1889 a great fire stopped short of Nation's hotel, convincing her that she was divinely shielded. Her religious fervor increasingly took the form of hallucinations and public displays. She found an outlet in the work of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) throughout the 1890s. This group became very active because the Kansas law prohibiting the sale of liquor was not being enforced.

In 1899 and into 1900 Nation and other WCTU women developed a campaign of prayer and religious song outside local saloons. A tall, powerful, determined woman, Nation was first treated roughly and with contempt. She then began an offensive which made her internationally famous. She and her friends returned to the "joints" and in violent confrontations and challenges to the law, which she held remiss for not enforcing prohibition, they succeeded in closing the saloons.

The tumult Nation had stirred up inspired her to broaden her campaign. In Wichita and Topeka, Kans., and other cities, wearing her famous black dress and bonnet and carrying a Bible and an iron rod, she roused citizens and officials. On Jan. 21, 1901, at Wichita, she first used the hatchet that became her trademark.

Strongly convinced of divine guidance - she thought her name (Carry A. Nation) had been predestined - Nation extended her activities, though on occasion she stood trial and served time in jail. The WCTU was not in wholehearted support of her. Her husband divorced her on grounds of desertion. Her lectures and publications (The Smasher's Mail, The Hatchet) earned money that she spent freely on such reforms as a home for wives of alcoholics in Kansas City, Kans.

A trip to New York City was picturesque but ineffective, and increasingly, during raids in major cities from San Francisco, Calif., to Washington, D.C., Nation became a symbol of aggression rather than of temperance reform. Her distaste for tobacco and contemporary women's clothes accentuated her conservative character. By the time of her death in Leavenworth, Kans., on June 2, 1911, it was clear that she had outlived her time.

Further Reading

Carry Nation's autobiography, The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation (1904), is vivid and informative. Her major biographers have been remarkably judicious and understanding, though philosophically opposed to her on most counts. See Herbert Asbury, Carry Nation (1929); Carleton Beals, Cyclone Carry: The Story of Carry Nation (1962); and Robert Lewis Taylor, Vessel of Wrath: The Life and Times of Carry Nation (1966).

Additional Sources

Madison, Arnold., Carry Nation, Nashville: T. Nelson, 1977.

For more information on Carry Amelia Nation, visit Britannica.com.

1846–1911, American temperance advocate, b. Garrard co., Ky. During her childhood her family moved a great deal, finally settling at Belton, Mo., where she married (1867) Charles Gloyd, a physician. She abandoned Gloyd when he became a hopeless alcoholic, and in 1877 she married David Nation, an itinerant minister and lawyer. A proponent of temperance (see temperance movements) for many years and convinced of her divine appointment to destroy the saloon, Carry Nation gained fame in 1900 while living in Kansas when she began to supplement public prayers and denunciation with the personal destruction of saloon liquor and property. From Kansas she traveled to New York and soon became a national figure in the temperance cause. She presented a formidable obstacle to anyone attempting to stop her; her size (6 ft, 175 lb) and her use of the hatchet to smash saloons became legendary. Nevertheless, she was often attacked and beaten badly and was arrested 30 times in her life. Because of her unorthodox tactics, most temperance organizations were hesitant to support her. She did, however, focus public attention on the cause of prohibition and helped to create a public mood favorable to the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. She was also a forceful advocate of woman suffrage, although she received little support from suffrage organizations.

Bibliography

See her autobiography, The Use and Need of the Life of Carry Nation (1904), and biographies by H. Asbury (1929), C. Beals (1962), and R. L. Taylor (1966).

(1846-1911)

1904	The Use and Need of the Life of Carry Nation. The memoir of the notorious hatchet-wielding temperance crusader.

A social reformer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who argued forcefully for abstinence from alcohol. Known for taking direct action, she and her followers often used hatchets to smash beer kegs and liquor bottles in saloons. (See Prohibition.)

Quotes:

"Men are nicotine soaked, beer besmirched, whiskey greased, red-eyed devils."