Carrie A. Nation Pin, 1905
Carrie A. Nation Pin, 1905
Usage conditions apply
- Description
- By her own account, temperance reformer Carry A. Nation used rocks, a sledgehammer borrowed from a blacksmith, and a bar room billiard ball to destroy five Kansas saloons—before she took up a hatchet to destroy a Wichita, Kansas, saloon on December 27, 1900. Saloons were illegal under Kansas state law, but tolerated by officials. Explaining her choice of weapon, Nation recalled that the state’s “liquor interests” had nothing to fear from the usual temperance advocates, “but they were not prepared for a furious woman and a hatchet.” Her saloon smashings became known as “hatchetations”—a play on words coined by the publicity-savvy Nation.
- A Topeka, Kansas, druggist supplied Nation with little pewter hatchets to sell to cover her legal fines and travel expenses. Nation found that the public clamored for her hatchet souvenirs and readily grasped the meaning of them.
- Object Name
- Pin
- associated organization
- Woman's Christian Temperance Union
- Physical Description
- metal (overall material)
- mother of pearl (overall material)
- Measurements
- overall: 2 in x 1 in; 5.08 cm x 2.54 cm
- ID Number
- PL.160750
- accession number
- 160750
- catalog number
- 42424
- Credit Line
- Clay F. Gaumer
- subject
- Women's History
- Temperance
- Prohibition
- Temperance
- See more items in
- Political and Military History: Political History, Womens History/Reform Movements Collection
- Government, Politics, and Reform
- American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith
- Exhibition
- American Democracy
- Exhibition Location
- National Museum of American History
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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