Online Exhibits

Carry A. Nation

An American Icon

Carry Nation is still a household name. She has become an American icon. Unfortunately, most people today know her only as an oversimplified stereotype. Her actions made her an easy target for opponents, leading to a caricature that survives today.

In fact, Carry Nation was acting within a mainstream reform movement aimed at improving people's lives. Although many took part in these reforms, it is Carry Nation whose image and name endure.

American icons often have their names used in ways they might not approve. The name "Lincoln" saturates Illinois, and Mark Twain's name is attached to businesses in areas where he lived. Carry Nation found her name used many ways during her lifetime, and it continues so after her death.

A chapter of the Beer Can Collectors of America is named for her. The image of a hatchet on a shot glass was part of a campaign to bring liquor-by-the-drink to Kansas. Perhaps the most twisted use of the name "Carrie Nation" is as street slang for crack cocaine.

Towns visited by Carry still remember her. A "Carry Nation Festival" is held annually in Holly, Michigan. Her home at Medicine Lodge, Kansas, is open to the public as a museum. The City Hall Museum at Belton, Missouri, maintains an exhibit, and the city has its own Carry Nation festival.

Writers use Carry's name when they want to suggest that an individual has taken a position as a crusader. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rudolph Giuliani were potential opponents for the 2000 U.S. Senate race for New York. Both the former First Lady and New York City mayor were called "Carry Nation" in the months leading up to the election.

". . . she finds a way to speak out against practices that degrade and humiliate women....She's Carrie Nation. . . . She's a temperance worker wielding a hatchet."
-"The Hillary Dilemma," Washington Post Magazine, March 21, 1999

"Seeming to relish his role as the Carrie Nation of the anti-drinking-and-driving movement, Giuliani has begun to enforce a law making it possible for the police to immediately seize the cars of any drivers who fail a Breathalyzer test. . . ."
-"On a Collision Course," Intellectualcapital.com, March 11, 1999

Students study Carry to learn about her long-term impact on history. Jennifer Payne researched Carry Nation for a fourth grade project at Scranton Learning Center. Listen to Jennifer's comments on Carry.

To many people, Carry Nation will always be "The Lady with the Hatchet," an image she herself cultivated. But the hatchet is just a symbol of what she stood for. Her methods may have been extreme, but there was no doubt that she sincerely wanted to improve the lives of others. In doing so she focused on problems that had created turmoil in her own life.

"You refused me the vote and I had to use a rock."
"The loving, moral influence of women must be
put to the ballot box."
"If you would elevate man you must first elevate woman."