Carry Nation Research Paper

In a time when women were ignored and downtrodden by the male-dominant society, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union arose in 1874 to fight against the culture of alcohol that threatened the lives and livelihoods of women and families. Among these was a woman named Carry Nation, a radical fighter in the temperance movement who caused the destruction of bars in protest of the state of Kansas’ failure to enforce a ban on the production of alcohol. Carry Nation, along with nearly all women in the latter portion of the 1800’s had virtually no rights, and no voice. This meant that they were at the mercy of the men they lived with, their husbands and brothers and fathers, and their already miniscule power was diminished in the face of alcoholism. Men who drank posed the biggest threat to society and home life, according to the Women’s Christian Temperance Society, a group that fought for temperance and women’s rights. Women had to establish their own rights independently of men,
These involved herself and other women singing hymns and praying as they marched into and destroyed the windows and fixtures of bars and saloons, along with the stock of beverages held there. She would also host public lectures on alcohol and tobacco, during at least one of which she called alcohol “Evil Spirits.” After her death in Leavenworth Kansas, her epitaph read “She Hath Done What She Could,” a testament to her life as an activist, no matter how insane. Carry Nation was a woman who fought for women’s rights and temperance to protect women, society, and the home. She took matters into her own hands, rather violently; probably as a result of a developing mental illness, the evidence for which is in her family history of mental illness. However, she was doubtlessly what propelled America toward not only Temperance, which was repealed ten years after its enactment, but women’s rights as