Leading the Way: Famous Kansans

Prevention, believed Samuel Crumbine, was important in fighting disease. Samuel Crumbine crusaded to change public ideas about health with such sayings as "Don't Spit On The Sidewalk" and "Swat The Fly." Crumbine started his medical practice in Ford County, where he had purchased half interest in a drugstore business. His 1899 appointment to the Kansas State Board of Health made him the state's first full-time public health officer. He warned against the use of the common drinking cup, the hazards of the housefly, and the use of a common towel in public restrooms.

She often knitted on the train while traveling to her lectures. Clarina Nichols' knitting presented a domestic image that contrasted with her words. Nichols spoke of equality for women in a time when women were treated as little more than property. As early as 1847 she argued for equal education, joint property deeds for husband and wife, a woman's right to insure her husband's life, and stronger inheritance rights for widows. Following her second marriage Nichols took over as editor of her husband's newspaper, publishing in support of abolition and prohibition. When Kansas Territory opened for settlement Nichols and her family came West. She was, by this time, in demand as a public speaker in the crusade for women's rights.

Carry Nation was dressed in black, quoting Bible verses, and swinging a hatchet when she marched into a Wichita bar. Earlier Nation had been arrested for smashing the elegant Carey Hotel bar in Wichita, but that experience did not deter her. With her hachet as a symbol of her cause, Carry Nation herself became a symbol. Her belief in the evils of alcohol most likely came from her first marriage. Carry was deeply in love with Charles Gloyd and was devastated by his alcoholism. His death left Carry to raise their daughter alone. She married a second time, but focused her energies to the temperance cause. She believed drinking was responsible for much heartache in her own life as well as the lives of other women and children. Carry Nation took up the crusade to rid Kansas and the nation of alcoholic beverages.