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foreign this is a this is something so this is like everything under the sun I'm
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looking at that's very close yes I mean I've seen lawn mowers stock car whatever the it's a Soapbox
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Derby car there are trunks there's some lawn for uh equipment this is Blair tar curator for the Kansas Museum of History
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which is part of the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka inside the museum behind two enormous double doors
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is an area not open to the public it's a huge Warehouse with floor-to-ceiling shelves lined with the most random
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assortment of objects the pink thing that you see up there is actually a breast and larger
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uh and we do have the mail equivalent as well in the collection so of everything because we are charged
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with the history of Kansas and collecting for it and you know any aspect of Kansas life we try to
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collect a little bit of it we've got over a hundred thousand artifacts here they've got the Gallows used to hang
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Richard Hickok and Perry Smith the two murderers Truman Capote made famous when he wrote In Cold Blood they have their
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gravestones too and they have a revolver that was hand carved out of wood by an inmate at the State penitentiary in
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Lansing he used it to try to Bluff his way out of prison but we were there to learn about a woman
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and her Hatchet she said very early on that when she would be photographed she wanted to be
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photographed of the Bible in one hand and her Hatchet in the other Carrie Amelia Moore was born in 1846 in
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a farm in Garrett County Kentucky her father George Moore was a wealthy farmer who always had a corn cob pipe
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between his teeth Carrie said that when she was a little girl she admired her father so much that she filed her own
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teeth down to look more like him her mother Mary Campbell Moore was Raising four stepchildren and nearly
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always pregnant the end of her life in an asylum this is a time when it wouldn't take a lot to
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put somebody in an asylum particularly a woman if they were thought not to be living up to standards of a woman in the
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time period she was put in the Asylum by a son who owed her money and all he really had to
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do was say my mother is crazy you've got to take her in and that was really about
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all that was needed to do that in the in the 19th century so Kerry never believed that she her
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mother was really insane when Kerry was 19 years old a young doctor showed up at the family's
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doorstep his name was Charles gloyd he was said to be a smart guy he spoke several languages opened a small school
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and rented a room in the Moore's house Carrie wasn't allowed to be alone with him under any circumstances her mother
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said he was an active drag on the energies of those around him but Carrie liked him he would leave
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secret notes for her inside of books she would reply and sneak the books back onto his nightstand
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after two years they set a wedding date her mother was Furious on the day of the wedding Charles gloyd
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showed up drunk I did not find Dr gloyd to be the lover I expected she wrote he was never home
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out drinking every night her parents visited and found Carrie in worn out dirty clothes with no food in
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the house they convinced her to get out of there and move back home with them within six
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months Charles gloyd was dead she prayed for a new husband she wrote in her diary that she didn't have anyone
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in mind and asked God to pick someone out for her a week later she saw an older man in the
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street with an extremely long white beard and a quote startling appearance his name was David Nation he's looking
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for somebody to take care of his household this happens a lot in the 19th century too you have women trying to
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find some sort of support you have men who are trying to find somebody to run their household it's a marriage of
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convenience in a lot of ways they married in 1877 and moved to a very small town in Kansas called Medicine
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Lodge she really comes into her own I think at this point because she gets involved with the community she becomes
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involved with the women's Christian Temperance Union because well because of her first husband she's very much
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interested in the idea of prohibition and she has a lot to say about that about how this affects a woman
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obviously Americans have been drinking alcohol since the pilgrims but in the 19th century the weak beer and cider
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everyone was drinking at every meal was replaced by Ramen whiskey and it took people a little while to realize that
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there was a pretty big difference in the alcohol content something was up by 1830
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the average American drank three times as much as we drink today well you know I guess the idea here is
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that women are are the ones that bore the brunt of a lot of this alcoholism because if the husbands were drunk all
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the time they weren't going to work and they weren't helping around the house and they were spending valuable money
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they could be used to feed children and their their wives Carrie was not shy about putting forth
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that idea not only were men blowing all their money on booze they'd come home drunk and be physically abusive
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bars attracted customers with gambling and sex so husbands often brought syphilis and gonorrhea home to their
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wives and while women had no legal recourse against their husbands they could advocate for prohibition
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Kansas was the first state to prohibit alcohol in its constitution in 1881. now the law in Kansas does have that little
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catch-all about liquor can be served for medicinal purposes which is Big loophole in some
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places including Medicine Lodge where there's a pharmacy that liquor is available and obviously a little bit
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more than just medicinal purposes there's literally a back room that the pharmacist has where he's serving liquor
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a pharmacist might recommend rum with milk to help a woman get pregnant rum and aloe might Cura sorto and drinking
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rum with horse urine was prescribed for weight loss but really it doesn't appear it took
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much to convince a pharmacist to take your money and serve you a drink outside of the pharmacies you could also
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find illegal bars all over Kansas the old joke is that there were signs out in Western Kansas
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no bear it's only like no beer here near beer three miles so it's uh everybody knows where there's liquor
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being served it's not a great Secret Kerry couldn't stand it she organized groups of women to go into bars and sing
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and try to reason with the men inside and when people made fun of her which they often did in the very small town
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she prayed that God would send a tornado to destroy all the bars in Kansas she would go into the jails and ask each
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inmate why they were there they'd all say because they'd gotten drunk in the nearby town of Kiowa
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Kerry took this information to the county attorney and he ignored her she then went to the state's attorney he
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ignored her too so she went directly to the governor she wrote after appealing to the governor in vain I found that I
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could go to no other authority on Earth and so in June of 1900 she finished her housework cooked a meal for her husband
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and got on the road to Kiowa with a buggy full of bricks I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal
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she made it to Kiowa after dark and slept at a friend's house she woke up very early the next morning and went
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straight to a place she knew to be a secret bar it was called a refreshment stand she walked in and said men I've
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come to save you from a drunkard's grave and start smashing when you say smashing
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she is it's a just throwing stuff smashing can be destroying glasses breaking glass smashing mirrors smashing
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liquor bottles doing damage to Furniture in the place breaking out windows if necessary just
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about anything that may cause any sort of damage so she says to herself okay the protests
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aren't working the songs aren't working I've got to step it up I've got to step it up I mean though I'm gonna I'm just
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gonna start throwing things uh yeah she smashed three Kiowa bars that day even throwing a billiard ball at the
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head of a bartender she said she felt Invincible the streets filled up with people watching and she introduced
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herself to them as God's right arm she gave a speech explaining that she was not a criminal that the police
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officers and government officials were the real criminals for refusing to enforce prohibition
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she hated politicians and hated President William McKinley she said government like dead fish stinks worse
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at the head she was arrested but there is a problem she's destroying property that legally
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isn't supposed to exist so that sort of limits you you can maybe get her for disturbing the peace or
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something like that but legally destroying property that's another story you can't charge somebody with what
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isn't supposed to exist to begin with the Kiowa mayor concluded that nothing had ever happened and let her go home
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so her next Target is Wichita she set her sights on the fanciest bar in the entire state of Kansas the Cary Hotel
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bar and it was in Wichita that someone handed her a hatchet for the very first time
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that became a very handy device you realize this could do an awful lot she could take it to a bar and start
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chopping away at it so she wouldn't just smash battle she'd also start hatcheting
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the bar she could destroy the bars too if if she thought that was necessary she was trying to drive home a point
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that's a very strong way to drive home a point but she was trying hard the hatchet really suited her she'd
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swing it around and say don't come near my Hatchet it might fall on you and she used it to wreck everything in the Cary
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Hotel bar crystal decanters a chandelier she even knocked the wrongs out of all the chairs three thousand dollars in
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damage one man said he thought Judgment Day had arrived she called it a hesitation
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and when she was brought before a judge she addressed him as your dishonor this time
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she was sent to jail for quite a while she found jail inspiring she thought it strengthened and purified her and while
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she was in jail she received letters from women in other parts of the state they'd heard what she'd done and wanted
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her to come to their town and save their homes this is how she came to reinvent herself
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as your loving home Defender Carrie a nation people are often wondering about the spelling of her first name because
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sometimes she used I.E and sometimes it was y well up to the time she started smashing
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she tended to use I.E but when she started smashing and began to get an audience
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it went over to why you could hear her talk it usually ended up with something like
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and with these efforts we can carry a nation newspapers are all over her and they
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exaggerated everything she was called a giant a secret Drinker a man in women's clothes one reporter even described her
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as a quote possible werewolf but what's interesting is when you look at her dresses preserved at the Kansas
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Historical Society you see just how much the papers exaggerated she wasn't a giant at all she was short
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and her dresses while simple and a little bit moth eaten after 117 years have a delicate line of pearl buttons up
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the side and a silk bow on the shoulder [Music] oh after Kiowa in Wichita bar owners knew
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to prepare for her arrival when she arrived in Topeka four bars installed trapped doors just inside their
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entrances people threw eggs at her face and she'd calmly wipe them away there's a story about a bar owner barricading
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himself and his customers inside the Kansas City Star reported that Carrie coaxed them out by speaking gently and
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saying boys boys your mother wants to talk to you but she's gentle enough in the way she speaks that although they've
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been barricaded in this alone they take down the barricade and open up the doors
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so that she comes in she doesn't actually do any smashing there but she does talk to them
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and in a little ways I think that's what you preferred to do she wasn't going to
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be able to talk she was going to smash in replacement for being denied the privilege of lecturing to them
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and and when you actually talk to her you most people found her very easy to talk
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to if she was provoked she would get angry [Music] you admire her I admire her a lot more than I did years
00:14:48
ago and that's probably because of all the things that I know about her now she had the saying that you wouldn't
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give me the vote so I had to use the rock she was against smoking and yeah she would literally walk down the
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streets of cities and go up to smokers and pull either the cigar or cigarettes out of their mouth and step on them and
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literally tell them that that was not healthy for them and also not healthy for her she has good instincts she
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doesn't always have the science or the riah rationale that we might have today behind her but she sort of understands
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things that we know now to be very true in Topeka thuttershites on a bar called the Senate
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Saloon that was popular with politicians so obviously the people who enacted prohibition are not exercising
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prohibition themselves she smashed everything including a large mirror behind the bar the museum at the
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Kansas Historical Society has a Shard of that mirror on display the owner picked
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up the fragments and for five cents they could buy a fragment and have whatever they wanted to drink
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it happened all the time sometimes of her smashings and somehow the saloon owner would manage to make a profit out
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of it somehow but and he did she found herself back in jail where she started her own newspaper the smasher's mail and
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by the end of the month she was on the front page of the New York Times she was signing autographed pictures of
00:16:27
herself and started selling them but then she found something even better what is this tiny little is that a pin
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that's a tiny little Hatchet it's a tiny little Hatchet yeah these when she was here in Topeka a man approached her with
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a box of little hatchets he said you could sell these and she did she sold them out rapidly
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there's also a stick pin too stick pins they think were 25 cents uh these pins the lapel pins were 50 cents
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she sold them out of a purse that she always carried at her side 25 and 50 cents was considerable in the
00:17:06
early 1900s this paid for her Transportation it would pay for fines occasionally housing uh even food when
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she was traveling about the country and she was always replenishing her stock because she kept selling these pins
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when you look through all the archival photos of her at the Historical Society some of them show her standing in front
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of huge groups of supporters she's always got that leather purse strapped across her chest they have the purse at
00:17:35
the Historical Society and it's in surprisingly good condition an oval handbag with a sturdy metal clasp at the
00:17:42
top they also have her diary and a watch and a Bible she inscribed to her nephew
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and are these her teeth what is this we don't know if those are for sure her teeth but we do know that she had false
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teeth because there is at least one story from I think it's Trinidad Colorado where she
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went into a saloon to lecture the owner was not terribly pleased about that and he threw her out of the saloon and
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apparently as part of the false teeth got caught and actually started she actually started choking
00:18:21
this one here that I always like to this was a sign that actually showed up in a lot of saloons all nations are
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welcomed except Carrie this was not meant to be a compliment but she apparently felt some humor in it
00:18:39
in August of 1901 she made her way to New York City she was 55 years old and spoke to a sold-out crowd at Carnegie
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Hall she gave a speech in Atlantic City where she reportedly sold more than 2 000 of her little Hatchet pins
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and then she met Susan B Anthony apparently they didn't have a lot in common Carrie Nation wrote that an elite
00:19:02
East Coast woman like Susan B Anthony quote didn't seem to understand the need for the hatchet
00:19:09
by November of that year David Nation filed for divorce she was famous enough for this to be national news they'd been
00:19:18
married for 24 years I married this woman because I needed someone to run my house he told reporters when asked to
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comment Carrie Nation said David isn't a bad fellow but he's too slow for me over the next 10 years she traveled all
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over the U.S and Canada giving lectures smashing and getting arrested she even visited Europe in Scotland she gave a
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lecture called how I smashed why I smashed and how you can smash I I don't think I've ever said the word
00:19:54
smash as much as I have just doing this story I love the word smashing I've never it seems to Encompass so much it's
00:20:03
like destroying and it's sort of ironic too because usually if you use the word smashed you're usually talking about
00:20:09
somebody who's been drinking too much uh but yeah she is probably the best face prohibition ever had as far as a figure
00:20:19
that you can identify with it on January 13 1911 she was giving a speech in Eureka Springs Arkansas when
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she collapsed she was 64 years old the headlines are all over the country that carry Nation to Great Saloon Smasher has
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passed away and she is in fact sort of almost forgotten a little bit because she's
00:20:41
buried in the family plot at Belton Missouri but for many years there's only a wooden plaque on her grave with her
00:20:47
name painted on it until in the mid-20s the citizens of Belton decided she needed something a lot more grander than
00:20:54
that and they put up this nice marble Stone on the grave before she died she wrote her life story
00:21:03
and called it the use and need of the life of Carrie a nation she revised it seven times
00:21:11
the 1905 Edition ends with the line Marvel not that the world hates you know that it hated me before it hated
00:21:20
you bring me Mom on drink from having a victim your loving home Defender if you go into a saloon and after now
00:21:37
why he makes that fire a drink that he played by Ruffin foot greens and poop and anything that is rotten poisonous
00:21:46
and it will rock the man clean and will rock his foot we're rocking Stone we rock pictures and make it rockiness of
00:21:58
everything [Music] we liked Carrie nation's tiny Hatchet pins so much we thought we'd try to make
00:22:12
some of our own they say Criminal on the handle if you follow the link in the show notes or go to our website this is
00:22:18
criminal.com you can get one before they're gone criminal is produced by Lauren Spore
00:22:25
Nadia Wilson and me audio mix by Rob Byers our intern is Matilda urfelino special thanks to Maya Goldberg safer
00:22:34
Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal you can see them at
00:22:40
thisiscriminal.com where on Facebook and Twitter at criminal show Criminal is recorded in the studios of North
00:22:48
Carolina public radio wunc we're a proud member of radiotopia from PRX a collection of the best
00:22:55
podcasts around radiotopia from PRX is supported by the Knight foundation and thanks to adzerk
00:23:03
for providing their ad serving platform to radiotopia I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal
00:23:14
radio [Music]