A Real Hatchet-Job

 By Cindy Regnier

  Being from Kansas I’ve always been intrigued by a rather infamous character from Kansas history. Carry Nation, apparently a feisty sort of gal, gained a reputation during the late 1800s by entering alcohol-selling businesses and going after the bottles with a hatchet. Can you imagine trying that today? Yes, she was arrested several times but that didn’t stop her from finding the next barroom or saloon and making a huge mess of shattered glass and spilled alcoholic beverages.

Carry Nation (that’s how she spelled her first name, saying she wanted to "Carry A. Nation" to prohibit the sale of alcohol.) was born Carrie Moore, in Kentucky. Her family was quite poor and it is said her mother suffered from mental instability. Talk about starting out at a disadvantage. But Carry persisted in her endeavors and earned a teaching certificate from a normal school. (Normal schools were an interesting type of college, but that’s another blog.) At the age of 21 she married her first husband whom she left only a few months later because she couldn’t endure his alcohol habit. Ten years later she married David Nation, a lawyer and minister. This second husband would divorce her after 24 years. 

 Carry hated alcohol and was convinced it needed to be abolished. She became a part of the temperance movement in 1890 after the Supreme Court decided in favor of the importation and sale of liquor. The court decision considerably weakened existing prohibition laws in several states including Kansas where she now resided. She believed the illegality of the saloons now flourishing in that state meant that anyone could destroy them without a penalty being enforced.

Alone or sometimes in groups of like-minded women, she marched into the establishments dressed in black and singing hymns, praying or shouting scriptures, then smashed the bar fixtures and any alcohol she could find with a hatchet. She led her first raid in 1894 at a local “pharmacy.” Nation led the group into the store and announced to the owner, “The ladies of the WCTU want to see what you have in here.” “Women, this is whiskey.” The women overturned a keg, rolled it out the door, and smashed the contents on the ground, which they lit and burned. Once she even invaded the governor’s private chambers to state her case.

The bar room owners and law-enforcement authorities obviously didn’t buy into her claims of impunity as she was forced to pay fines and jailed multiple times. She often paid the fines from proceeds of lecture tours where she sold souvenir hatchets. The ire of saloon owners and patrons didn’t stop her as she was physically assaulted many times, surviving all such attacks and returning for more. Before she laid down her hatchet in 1901 and took her fight to the printing press, Nation was arrested 30 different times and David Nation filed for divorce on the grounds of desertion. 

Mrs. Nation published newsletters with names such as The Smasher’s Mail, The Hatchet, and the Home Defender—and her autobiography, The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation, in 1904. Her “hatchet” period was fairly short-lived, but it brought her national attention and notoriety. She was much in demand as a temperance lecturer; encouraging her supporters to fight not only the saloons but also fraternal orders, tobacco, foreign foods, corsets, skirts of improper length, and mildly pornographic art of the sort found in some bar rooms of the time. Furthermore, she was an advocate of the suffrage movement and even performed a vaudeville act to support her beliefs.

She died at the age of 64, still famous as an advocate for American temperance and her use of a hatchet to demolish bar rooms.

What do you think about how Carry Nation fought for her beliefs? Respect? Horror? Admiration? Mixed bag, huh? Yeah, me too.

Scribbling in notebooks has been a habit of Cindy Regnier since she was old enough to hold a pencil. Born and raised in Kansas, she writes stories of historical Kansas, especially the Flint Hills area. Her experiences with the Flint Hills setting, her natural love for history, farming and animals, along with her interest in genealogical research give her the background and passion to write heart-fluttering historical romance

Temperance Movement in the US

It’s funny how writers go from an idea to research to a story, but more than anything it’s fun for me to look back at some of the things I end up researching on my computer. Mostly I don’t think about it at the time. There’s information I need, and the internet has it. But let’s just hope the FBI hasn’t tapped my internet connection thinking I’m headed for mischief. Because I write so many genres, there’s no telling what I might be researching. Rat poison (even better how to kill someone using rat poison), Amish wedding traditions, the origin of the hamburger, and how many cops a town of 1500 should have. (On this last one, I still think they’re keeping tabs on me. lol)

But I ran across my research about the temperance movement the other day and since we are heading up on the biggest drinking holiday of the year, I thought I might share.

The Temperance movement began in the early 1800s. This is not to say

that people hadn’t been against drinking before this. The movement got them organized. At first the members only wanted to make people “temperate” in their drinking or to make them drink less. But by the 1820s they started advocating total abstinence, urging people to stop drinking completely. The movement was persuasive in helping pass laws that banned the sale of liquor in several states.

For the most part the movement was made up of women and their children who felt they had suffered from their husband’s/father’s drinking. Unfortunately most had. Keep in mind that women weren’t allowed in most of the drinking establishments. This further separated them from the men in their lives. Another fact that is very important: In many parts of the country very few beverages existed that didn’t contain alcohol. Often it was considered healthier to drink liquor of one sort or another instead of water, which was often unclean.

Temperance also connected many other reform movements that came up between

the American Revolution and the Civil War. Many of these movements created a renewed interest in religion. They called this The Second Great Awakening. The ministers of this awakening preached in an energetic and emotional manner, perhaps something like the charismatic preachers of today. But these intense religious experiences weren’t just for Sunday church meetings. Tents and open-air "revivals" were very influential in The Second Great Awakening. The American Society for the Promotion of Temperance (1826) was interdenominational. Thanks to the ties between religion and temperance there were around 6,000 local temperance groups by the 1830s.

People were inspired to make the world a better place. Or to at least try. Reform movements rose to improve all aspects of society: the rights of women, a call for the end to slavery, care for the mentally challenged, fair treatment of prisoners, and many others. Temperance was at the center of most of these reform movements because many of these reformers believed in abstinence. Through their work with temperance movement circles these reformers met and began to look for ways to improve other parts of society.

The temperance movement also produced a second reform era, Progressivism. This period was categorized by taking the efforts to reform society and pushing them one step further. Among others, these restructurings included women's right to vote as well as equal pay for women, birth control, child labor improvements, the eight-hour work day and environmental conservation.

A few interesting facts about the temperance movement:

When people took the pledge to stop drinking they joined what was called the "Cold Water Army."

The temperance movement wasn’t an American concept. There were also temperance movements throughout Europe at the time. 

Irish Temperance Movement

Notable figures associated with the U.S. temperance movement-- Susan B. Anthony, Frances E. Willard, and Carry A. Nation who worked largely by herself. 

Carry A. Nation

The temperance movement peaked when the 18th Amendment to the Constitution (Prohibition, 1919-33) was passed and ratified. 

But Prohibition was not a success and was repealed in 1933 by the 21st Amendment.

The most well-known temperance effort in the modern day is Alcoholics Anonymous.

Regardless of your personal stand on alcohol, it is apparent that the temperance movement that began in the 19th century had lasting effects. 

Happy New Year, everyone! And if you go out to imbibe, please drink responsibly!