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Carry A. Nation

Paying the Bills

To fund her temperance crusade, Carry needed money for living expenses and to pay jail fines, railroad fares, and hotel bills. She also supported a home for drunkards' wives in Kansas City, Kansas. Paying these bills was especially critical after husband David filed for divorce at the height of Carry's prohibition activities.

While Carry was speaking on the street in Topeka in 1901, a man ran from a candy store and handed her several small pewter hatchets. He suggested, "Sell them to this crowd and you can pay your costs and fines this month." The crowd quickly snatched them up.

In her autobiography, The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation, the crusader said of the pins, "They carry a message with them, it is the heart of a mother crying, "Carry A. Nation for my baby, for my loved ones, Carry A. Nation against the saloons."

The little hatchet pins accompanied Carry everywhere. Ready to be sold at any time, they were stored in a favorite leather case often seen slung over Carry's shoulder in photographs.

The Home Defender button (right) also became "the badge of our army." The concept of women as "Home Defenders" was central to the prohibition movement. Women were seen as protecting the home from the ravages of alcohol and other vices. Carry herself donated one of these buttons to the Kansas Historical Society in 1901.

Carry produced and sold thirteen issues of The Smasher's Mail in 1901. This newspaper allowed her to print her opinions, letters from both opponents and supporters, and poetry devoted to the cause. Ironically, Carry's partner with The Smasher's Mail was Nick Chiles, an African American businessman who ran a saloon. The partnership lasted three issues, with Carry accusing Chiles of changing her text and withholding advertising money.

Carry sold copies of this photo (bottom, left) to support her cause.
Can you guess with what two items did she choose to be photographed?

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