Long before the coming of Prohibition in 1920, there was the temperance movement.
Taking its name from the Greek writer Xenophon's definition of temperance as "moderation from all things healthful; abstinence from all things harmful", temperance groups in Europe and North America actively crusaded for a range of moral causes, including the banning of alcohol. Linking "demon rum" to numerous social evils, including domestic violence, many temperance activists were also active suffragettes and encouraged women to become more involved in politics. Although religious figures always regarded alcohol with suspicion due to its perceived role in inspiring immoral behaviour, it was only during the early 19th century that the formal temperance movement began. First originating in the United Kingdom and spreading throughout the British Empire (Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand all began temperance crusades at about the same time), the United States quickly jumped on the bandwagon.
In the United States, the largest temperance group was the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) . Formed in 1873, the WCTU crusaded for the passage of legislation to reinforce Christian ideals of sobriety and morality. Although their greatest victory still lay in the future with the ratification of the 18th Amendment in 1920 and the banning of alcohol sales across the United States, the WCTU was feared by saloon owners and alcohol distilleries alike due to their abstinence crusade. The temperance movement became especially strong in the decades following the U.S. Civil War and advocates such as Neal Dow, Francis Willard and Matilda Carse became national figures. The tactics advocated by the WCTU and other temperance groups were relatively peaceful and primarily focused on encouraging legislators to pass stronger anti-alcohol legislation. Considering the lack of progress and general apathy that temperance workers faced, it isn't surprising that there would be calls for far stonger measures.
Which brings us to Carry Nation...
Born in 1846 to a family of prosperous slave owners, Carry Amelia Moore (her name was often spelled Carrie) had a difficult childhood. Along with her various health issues, her family also had financial problems that forced her parents to move repeatedly during her early life. There was also a family history of mental illness on her mother's side of the family. Not only did her maternal grandmother, aunt, uncle, and cousin suffer from psychiatric problems (possibly dementia) but her mother was prone to intermittent delusions of being Queen Victoria (and eventually spent the last three years of her life in the Missouri State Hospital for the Insane). Carry's primary refuge during her mother's psychotic episodes was the family slave quarters.
During the Civil War, Carry's life was disrupted even further as her family was forced to evacuate to Kansas. In 1865, she married her first husband, Dr. Charles Gloyd, who was a severe alcoholic. Despite her best efforts, Carry was unable to prevent her husband from eventually drinking himself to death. Carry eventually managed to recover from this loss and move on but losing a husband to alcohol would have a profound effect on the rest of her life. After remarrying in 1874 and several failed business ventures later, Carrie and her second husband, David Nation, relocated back to Medicine Lodge in Kansas where she operated a hotel while her husband became a preacher. Still stung by her experience with her first husband, Carrie founded a local branch of the WCTU and campaigned for a legal ban on the sale of liquor.
Her protest methods were fairly direct but not nearly as unconventional as they would later become. Not only did she organize protest marches, she also regularly serenaded saloon patrons with hymns accompanied by a hand organ and denounced saloon keepers as "destroyers of men's souls". While the WCTU succeeded in closing down all but one saloon (one stubborn drugstore owner refused to cave in), Carry wasn't satisfied. Being a devout Christian, she regularly prayed for guidance and, on June 5, 1889, she received what she believed to be her answer. Inspired by a vision, she grabbed a sledgehammer, marched into the drugstore, and smashed a keg of whiskey. The terrifed drugstore owner closed up shop and left town.
But Carry Nation wasn't done yet. As she would later describe in her autobiography, "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". Carrie left her family and business and began her crusade in Kiowa, Kansas with a prosperous saloon run by Jasper Dobson. After gathering rocks, she announced to the saloon's patrons that she had "come to save you from a drunkard's fate". She then proceeded to smash all of the saloon's stock and went on to do the same at two other nearby saloons. After a tornado struck eastern Kansas, Carrie took it as a sign of divine approval. When her husband jokingly suggested that she should have used a hatchet instead, Carrie was inspired. She bought a hatchet in Medicine Lodge and the Great "Hatchetation Tour" was on.
And what a tour it was!
Over the course of the next few years, Carry Nation became a familiar sight with her hatchet brigade. Alone or with many of her followers, Carry would march into saloons bearing her familiar hatchet and smash whatever stock she could find. She also began a nationwide lecture tour to raise money to cover her legal costs (due to her repeated arrests and the fines that her various "hatchetations" incurred). Very much into marketing and branding, she took to spelling her name as "Carry A. Nation" (and even applied for a copyright) and sold souvenir hatchets. Her husband divorced her in 1901 but Carrie continued her crusade. Despite leaving her life and family behind, she showed not the slightest hesitation that she was following God's will and even described herself as a "bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn't like". Public opinion was divided on Carry and her mission and newspaper editorials ran the gamut from critical (one editor described her as being "crazy as a bedbug") to adoring. Saloons across the country often closed up as she approached rather than let Carry Nation anywhere near their businesses. The sight of tall, husky Carry waving her trademark hatchet terrified many a saloon keeper and signs with the slogan "All nations welcome but Carrie" became common in many bars.
Perhaps inevitably, her crusade began to flag as Carry ran out of money to keep it going. Despite some financial support from prominent temperance supporters and her regular lecture tours, the costs of the various fines that she incurred began to add up. She even joined the vaudeville circuit and toured music halls across the United States and Great Britain. Her proselytizing didn't go over so well with her audiences and she wasn't able to raise enough money to keep going When someone in the audience threw an egg at her at a lecture in 1909, Carry returned home. After eventaully settling in Eureka Springs, Arkansas (and a new house she titled Hatchet Hall), Carry Nation's failing health didn't stop her from crusading whenever she could. After collapsing during a speech, she was taken to a hospital in Leavenworth, Kansas where she died on June 9, 1911. The WCTU later erected a marker on her grave in Belton, Missouri and her old Medicine Lodge home was declared a National Landmark in 1976.
Despite her very public campaigning on behalf of temperance, there is little evidence that Carry's Nation was particularly effective in promoting the cause. The WCTU never officially sanctioned Carry's hatchetations and their quiet campaigning seemed far more preferable to Carry's vandalism. There was also the question of her mental status. Although she was frequently dismissed as insane by her critics, there seems little evidence that the divine inspiration that she claimed, complete with hearing voices, was anything more than good showmanship on her part. Although he never examined her himself, psychiatrist Karl Menninger considered her to be perfectly sane and viewed her antics as being a reasoned response to a real social problem.
Whatever her motivation, Carry Nation remains controversial and the WCTU that she helped foster still continues today. Although losing much of its appeal with the abolition of Prohibition in 1933, the WCTU maintains its opposition to a range of perceived social evils (including abortion and same-sex marriage).
Carry Nation would be proud.
Comments