Carrie Nation

Carrie Nation with hatchet and Bible

Carrie Amelia Nation, also Carry A. Nation (born November 25, 1846 in Garrard County , Kentucky , † June 9, 1911 in Leavenworth , Kansas ), was an American activist. She was a radical member of the abstinence movement that spoke out against alcohol before the advent of prohibition . Nation was known to attack businesses that sold alcohol, mostly saloons or bars, with a hatchet.

Life

Carrie Nation

Nation was born Carrie Amelia Moore in Kentucky on November 25, 1846. She was the daughter of the farmer George Moore and his wife Mary Moore, nee Campbell. Her father wanted the name to be written as Carry , but as a child she refused. Carrie Moore had several siblings; There were also several slaves on the farm. She and her family first moved to Cass County , Missouri , and the family lived in Kansas City during the American Civil War . There Carrie Moore helped care for the injured.

On November 21, 1867, Carrie Moore married the Civil War doctor Charles Gloyd. Prior to their wedding, Carrie Moore did not realize that her husband, whom she loved very much, had a serious drinking problem. After she realized during her pregnancy with her only child that her husband would not be able to support her because of his excessive consumption of alcohol, she separated from him before the birth of their daughter, Charlie, whom she named after her husband, and returned to the Her parents' farm back. Gloyd died a year later of complications from alcoholism . Carrie Gloyd sold land her father gave her and her husband's property, books and medical equipment, and used the money to build a house in Holden, Missouri. She lived there with her child and mother-in-law. From May 1871 to July 1872 she attended school to earn a teaching diploma from the Normal Institute in Warrensburg, Missouri. She taught in Holden for four years.

On December 27, 1874, she married David Nation, a widower with two children who was nine years older than her and who worked as a journalist for the Warrensburg Newspaper . He was also a lawyer and preacher. For a few years they lived in Warrensburg . They moved to Texas in 1877. There they wanted to run a cotton plantation, but the project failed. Her husband continued to work as a lawyer, and Carrie Nation ran a hotel in Columbia and later in Richmond. Carrie Nation was deeply religious.

In 1889 they moved to Medicine Lodge , Kansas. There David Nation became the preacher of the local church and Carrie Nation was involved in religious issues and devoted himself to charity. She tried to help other people, especially women and children, and was known for her generosity. She also campaigned for prisoners. She came to believe that their problems were mainly caused by alcohol. Illegal saloons continued to sell alcohol in Kansas. She stood in front of these bars with others and sang and prayed. These were then closed in Medicine Lodge very quickly. She organized the local branch of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and advocated compliance with state alcohol laws. Nation was an advocate of women's suffrage and women's rights.

Together with like-minded women who called themselves “Home Defenders”, she carried out a raid on the local “pharmacy” in December 1894. They discovered a barrel of whiskey, rolled it in front of the door, smashed it and lit the contents. In 1900 they attacked other bars armed with batons. They destroyed the ornate bar in the now listed Hotel Carey House in Wichita on December 27, 1900. Nation used an ax for the first time . After destroying a bar in Enterprise , they moved to the capital of Kansas, Topeka .

She reached Topeka on January 26, 1901. The city offered her a suitable stage. The Kansas Legislature was in session at the time of its arrival, and several saloons were operating illegally in the city . Including the “Senate Saloon”, which was frequently visited by MPs. The Kansas State Temperance Union was also there for its annual meeting and pledged its support in the cause, but not in its methods. Dressed in black with the symbol of the abstinence movement, a white bow on her neck, a crowd awaited her at the station. People were curious to see her smash a bar. She was taken to several saloons by them, where she asked the owners to close their shops. A saloon owner's wife attacked her with a broom and knocked the hood off her head. When she bent down to pick it up, the woman hit her on the bottom with the broom.

Carrie Nation in Prison (1901)

Carrie Nation met Governor William E. Stanley and worked with him to enforce the law of the state. Stanley didn't want to assure her of that and referred her to the attorney general. Nation did not accept that, showed him her black eye, which she had contracted when the bar in Enterprise was destroyed, and blamed him for it. He, on the other hand, urged her to be moderation and referred her to the place that he believed she should occupy in society as a woman. With a large group of supporters, Nation marched to Kansas Avenue on January 31, 1901 to speak to the owners of the saloons there. They were warned in advance and barricaded their shops. Nation spoke to them calmly, urging them to close their saloons. She also showed her determination to achieve this state permanently. It showed bar owners the harm alcoholism can do to families. Her stay in Topeka drew media criticism and she was ridiculed by reporters and covered with negative comments. After nothing had changed in Topeka a week later, Carrie Nation started with her "Home Defenders" to smash the first saloon in Topeka, the "Senate Saloon". More quickly followed and Nation was arrested. By the time she put down the hatchet and continued her work on the printing press and the media, she was arrested more than 30 times. Her husband David Nation therefore filed for divorce on account of abandonment.

Editing and lecture tours

Nation became the editor of Smasher's Mail . It invited discussions on the question of prohibition. She broke the question about prohibition down to two simple comparisons and put "the children of God" against "the children of the devil". As editor, she printed letters from supporters and opponents alike. The newspaper was already closed at the end of the year, and Nation used its fame on lecture tours that took it to Great Britain.

Carrie Nation officially changed its name to Carry in 1903 . As a play on words, it then stood for Carry A Nation for Prohibition . By publishing her autobiography, she was able to make enough money to buy a house in Kansas City. There she also offered help to the wives and mothers of alcoholics.

Through her actions she had built up an international reputation and was increasingly active as a lecture traveler. She sold photographs, pins and "Home Defender" buttons to fund her work.

Last years

At the end of her life, she moved to Eureka Springs , Arkansas. Her house served as a boarding school and as a school, which she called the "National College". It wasn't a college, however. She kept this house until her death, even though she continued to go on lecture tours. Their daughter married a man who ran several saloons in Texas. They often helped out Carrie Nation financially when she was in need.

Carrie Nation died in Leavenworth on June 9, 1911, a year before women in Kansas were given the right to vote. She was buried next to her mother in Belton, Missouri, in an initially unmarked grave. The WCTU later erected a large tombstone with her name and the inscription: "Faithful to the Cause, She Hath Done What She Could". Prohibition was introduced in the United States in 1919, but was repealed in 1933. In the 1950s, the WCTU bought the home that Nation had owned in Medicine Lodge. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976 .

“She had some reason for her crusade against the schnapps plague. Her mother had died in an insane asylum and her first husband, a Dr. Gloyd, too, was more devoted to alcohol than was conducive to domestic happiness. After his early death, she devoted herself to educational work on the evils of distilled water and she found understanding and support from Mr. David Nation, an apostle of temperance, whom she eventually married. Unfortunately, the world did not want to improve as quickly as it would have liked, and so it went from word to deed, but lost the man who was unable to keep his lawyer consciousness in harmony with the illegal behavior of his wife. She began her vengeance against the saloons on June 6, 1900 with half a dozen bricks and four thick glass pots. [...] Later she switched to the hatchet. […] She even gave a guest performance in London in 1908 and was given the opportunity in Newcastle on Tyne to make comparisons between English and American prison food; in America she had been arrested no fewer than 22 times. In 1903 she even called on President Roosevelt's White House , but was escorted out by two policemen. "

- Obituary in the Deutsches Volksblatt from July 4, 1911

Honors

Two of their homes have been listed and listed on the National Register of Historic Places :

• Carry A. Nation House (Medicine Lodge, Kansas) , NRHP ID 71000303
• Carry A. Nation House (Lancaster, Kentucky) , NRHP ID 77000620

Judy Chicago dedicated an inscription to her on the triangular floor tiles of the Heritage Floor of her installation The Dinner Party . The porcelain tiles labeled Carrie Nation are assigned to the place with the place setting for Susan B. Anthony .

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c d e f} Carry A. Nation - Historic Missourians - The State Historical Society of Missouri. In: shsmo.org. historicmissourians.shsmo.org, accessed December 27, 2020 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Carry A. Nation - Kansapedia - Kansas Historical Society. In: kshs.org. Retrieved December 27, 2020 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Carry Nation Biography (Carrie Nation, Carry A. Nation). In: alcoholproblemsandsolutions.org. Alcohol Problems & Solutions, 2015, accessed December 27, 2020 (American English). 
4. ↑ The woman with the hatchet. In:  Deutsches Volksblatt / Deutsches Volksblatt. Radical middle class organ / telegraph. Radical medium-sized organ / Deutsches Volksblatt. Daily newspaper for Christian German politics , July 4, 1911, p. 6 (online at ANNO ).
5. ↑ Brooklyn Museum: Carrie Nation. In: brooklynmuseum.org. Retrieved December 27, 2020 . 

Web links

Commons : Carrie Nation  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Carrie Nation in the database of Find a Grave (English)