Caroline Amelia Nation (November 25, 1846 – June 9, 1911), often referred to as Carrie, Carry Nation, Carrie A. Nation, or Hatchet Granny, was a radical of the American temperance movement, which opposed alcohol consumption before the advent of Prohibition. Nation is noted for attacking alcohol-serving establishments (most often taverns) with a hatchet. She was previously known by her birth name Carrie Moore, then as Carrie Gloyd upon her first marriage in 1867, before she married David Nation in 1874.
She described herself as "a bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn't like", and claimed a divine ordination to promote temperance by destroying bars. She was known as "Mother Nation" for her charity and religious work, which she thought of as an extension of her fight against drunkenness. In 1890, Nation founded a sewing circle in Medicine Lodge, Kansas to make clothing for the poor as well as prepare meals for them on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.
In 1901, Nation established a shelter for wives and children of alcoholics in Kansas City, Missouri. This shelter would later be described as an "early model for today's battered women's shelter".
In her autobiography, The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation (1908), she also strongly opposed Freemasonry. Nation also fought against the fashion for corsets that constricted women's vital organs.
Caroline Amelia Moore was born in Garrard County, Kentucky, to George Moore and Mary Campbell. Her father was a successful farmer, stock trader, and slaveholder. During much of her early life, her health was poor, and her family experienced financial setbacks. The family moved several times in Kentucky and finally settled in Belton, Missouri in 1854.
In addition to their financial difficulties, many of Moore's family members had mental illnesses; her mother, at times, had delusions. There is speculation that the family did not stay in one place long because of rumors about Mary Moore's mental state. Some writers have speculated that Mary believed she was Queen Victoria because of her finery and social airs. Mary lived in an insane asylum in Nevada, Missouri, from August 1890 until her death on September 28, 1893. Mary was put in the asylum through legal action by her son, Charles, although there is suspicion that Charles instigated the lawsuit because he owed Mary money.
The family moved to Texas as Missouri became involved in the Civil War in 1862. George did not fare well in Texas, and he moved his family back to Missouri. The family returned to High Grove Farm in Cass County. When the Union Army ordered them to evacuate their farm, they moved to Kansas City. Carrie nursed wounded soldiers after a raid on Independence, Missouri. The family again returned to their farm when the Civil War ended.
In 1865, Carrie met Charles Gloyd, a young physician who had fought for the Union and was a severe alcoholic. Gloyd taught school near the Moores' farm while deciding where to establish his medical practice. He eventually settled in Holden, Missouri, and asked Moore to marry him. Moore's parents objected to the union because they believed he was addicted to alcohol, but the marriage proceeded. They were married on November 21, 1867, and separated shortly before the birth of their daughter, Charlien, on September 27, 1868. Gloyd died in 1869 of alcoholism.
Influenced by the death of her husband, Carrie Gloyd developed a passionate activism against alcohol. With the proceeds from selling her inherited land (as well as that of her husband's estate), she built a small house in Holden. Gloyd moved there with her mother-in-law and Charlien, and attended the Normal Institute in Warrensburg, Missouri, earning her teaching certificate in July 1872. Gloyd taught at a school in Holden for four years. She obtained a history degree and studied the influence of Greek philosophers on American politics.
Second marriage and "call from God"
In 1874, Carrie Gloyd married David A. Nation, an attorney, minister, newspaper journalist, and father who was 19 years her senior.
The family purchased a 1,700 acre (690 ha) cotton plantation on the San Bernard River in Brazoria County, Texas. As neither knew much about farming, the venture was ultimately unsuccessful. They moved to Brazoria for David Nation to practice law. In about 1880, they moved to Columbia (now East Columbia) to operate the hotel owned by A. R. and Jesse W. Park. Her name is on the roll of Columbia Methodist Church in West Columbia. She lived at the hotel with her daughter, Charlien Gloyd, "Mother Gloyd" (Carrie's first mother-in-law), and David's daughter, Lola. Carrie Nation's husband also operated a saddle shop just southwest of this site. The family soon moved to Richmond, Texas, to operate a hotel.
Carrie Nation began her temperance work in Medicine Lodge by starting a local branch of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and campaigning for the enforcement of Kansas' ban on the sale of liquor. Her methods escalated from simple protests to serenading saloon patrons with hymns accompanied by a hand organ, to greeting bartenders with pointed remarks such as, "Good morning, destroyer of men's souls." Dissatisfied with the results of her efforts, Nation began to pray to God for direction. On June 5, 1900, she felt she received her answer in the form of a heavenly vision. As she described it: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."
Responding to the revelation, Nation gathered several rocks – "smashers", she called them – and proceeded to Dobson's Saloon 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, Nation's husband 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." The couple divorced in 1901; they had no children. Between 1902 and 1906, she lived in Guthrie, Oklahoma.
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 "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.
In April 1901, Nation went to Kansas City, Missouri, a city known for its wide opposition to the temperance movement, and smashed liquor in various bars on 12th Street in downtown Kansas City. She was arrested, taken to court, and fined $500 (equivalent to $19,400 in 2025) although the judge suspended the fine under the condition that she never return to Kansas City. Reportedly she was placed in the Washington, D.C., poorhouse for three days for refusing to pay a $35 fine.
Nation also conducted women's rights marches in Topeka, Kansas. She led hundreds of women who were part of the Home Defender's Army to march in opposition to saloons. In Amarillo, Texas, she received a strong response, as she was sponsored by the surveyor W. D. Twichell, an active Methodist layman.