Postcard, "Carrie Nation Day at the Fair", 1901
date: label: date made
content: 1901
notes: label: Description
content: 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.
label: Description
content: 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.
topic: label: general subject association
content: Temperance
setName: label: See more items in
content: Political History: Political History, General History Collection
label: See more items in
content: Government, Politics, and Reform
label: See more items in
content: American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith
label: Exhibition
content: American Democracy
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: The Ralph E Becker Collection of Political Americana
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PL.227739.1901.S19
label: accession number
content: 227739
label: catalog number
content: 227739.1901.S19
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Postcard
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3 1/2 in x 5 1/2 in; 8.89 cm x 13.97 cm