June 5, 1900: This was the day that Carrie Nation claimed to have seen a vision telling her to fight for the prohibition of alcohol.
Caroline Amelia Moore was born on November 25, 1846 in Garrard County, Kentucky. Her father was a slaveholder. Her mother was institutionalized for mental illness, and the family moved around a lot. During the American Civil War, they were living in Missouri, and Carrie nursed wounded Confederate soldiers.
In 1867, she married a doctor, Charles Gloyd. But he was an alcoholic, and she left him just before the birth of their daughter, Charlien. He died the next year. Calling herself Carrie Gloyd, she became a teacher in Missouri. In 1874, she married the Rev. David A. Nation, who was a minister, an attorney, and a journalist. He was 19 years older than she was, and had been widowed, with a daughter, Lola.
They bought a cotton plantation outside Brazoria, Texas. They moved to Brazoria, where David practiced law. In 1880, they moved to East Columbia, Texas, to operate a hotel. Then David operated a saddle shop, and then they moved to Richmond, Texas, to operate another hotel. All of these ventures failed.
They moved to Kiowa, Kansas, where Carrie began working for the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). She described what happened to her on June 5, 1900, when she was 53 years old, as follows:
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."
- She gathered several rocks, calling them "smashers," and proceeded to Dobson's Saloon in Kiowa on June 7. Announcing "Men, I have come to save you from a drunkard's fate," she began to destroy the saloon's stock with her cache of rocks. After she similarly destroyed two other saloons in Kiowa, a tornado hit eastern Kansas, which Nation took as divine approval of her actions.
Carrie Nation continued her saloon destruction, her fame spreading through her growing arrest record. After she led a raid in Wichita, Kansas, David joked that she should use a hatchet next time for maximum damage. Nation replied, "That is the most sensible thing you have said since I married you." And yet, the couple divorced in 1901, having had no children.
Alone or accompanied by hymn-singing women, Nation 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 at least 32 times for her "hatchetations," as she came to call them. Nation paid her jail fines from lecture-tour fees and sales of stick, pins in the shape of hatchets. The souvenirs were provided by a pharmacist from Topeka, Kansas' State capital. She also conducted women's rights marches in Topeka.
Her anti-alcohol activities became widely known, with the slogan "All Nations Welcome But Carrie" becoming a bar-room staple. She published The Smasher's Mail, a biweekly newsletter, and The Hatchet, a newspaper.
Later in life, she exploited her name by appearing in vaudeville, and traveling to Britain where she appeared in their equivalent, the music halls. A proud woman more given to sermonizing than entertaining, she found these venues uninspiring for her proselytizing. Seeking profits elsewhere, Nation sold photographs of herself, collected lecture fees, and marketed miniature souvenir hatchets. She eventually moved to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and founded the home known as "Hatchet Hall."
She gave her final speech on January 14, 1911, collapsing mid-way through. She fell into a coma, and was taken to Evergreen Place Hospital in Leavenworth, Kansas, where she eventually died on June 9, 1911. She was 64 years old, but seemed much older. She was buried in Belton Cemetery in Belton, Missouri, outside Kansas City. The WCTU later erected a stone inscribed "Faithful to the Cause of Prohibition, She Hath Done What She Could" and the name "Carry A. Nation."
She did not live to see the ratification of the 18th Amendment, establishing Prohibition, in 1919; or that of the 21st Amendment, repealing the 18th, in 1933. But her name, without the middle initial, lived on, as a symbol of the movement against alcohol. But she also became a watchword for someone who refused to mind their own business and let people have a good time.
Carrie's daughter married and had 5 children. Charlien Gloyd McNabb lived until 1929.
There is an interesting postscript to her story: Her birthplace of Garrard County, Kentucky remains a dry County after all these years.
UPDATE: On November 7, 2023, voters in Garrard County voted to allow the sale of alcohol. I wonder if anyone went to Carrie's grave in Belton, to see if she was turning over in it.
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June 5, 1900 was a Tuesday. This was also the day that author Stephen Crane died of tuberculosis at the age of 28. I have a separate entry for that event.
The only major sports league in operation at the time was baseball's National League. There were 4 games played:
* The New York Giants lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 14-8 at the 1890-1911 version of the Polo Grounds.
* The Brooklyn Superbas beat the Chicago Orphans, 5-4 at Washington Park in Brooklyn. Since Cap Anson, also known as "Pop" retired, the Chicago team formerly known as the White Stockings and the Colts were called the Orphans because "they missed their Pop." They became the Cubs in 1903. The Brooklyn team was named the Superbas because their manager was Ned Hanlon, and there was then a famous circus troupe named Hanlon's Superbas. They became the Dodgers in 1911.
* The Boston Beaneaters beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 15-11 at the 1894-1914 version of the South End Grounds in Boston.
* And the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-5 at National League Park (later renamed Baker Bowl) in Philadelphia.
