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This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.
N. Rodgers: Hey, Aughie.
J. Aughenbaugh: Good morning, Nia. How are you?
N. Rodgers: I'm good. How are you?
J. Aughenbaugh: I'm feeling prohibited today.
N. Rodgers: Our series stories behind the names or names behind the thing. We don't know what we're
calling it, but stories behind the names, I think. We're not talking directly about prohibition today, but
we are talking about somebody whose name is tightly tied to the concept of prohibition. Who took it
personally. Caroline Amelia Moore Nation.
J. Aughenbaugh: Gloyd then Nation.
N. Rodgers: Gloyd Nation. Thank you. Gloyd Nation. I got her names wrong.
J. Aughenbaugh: No. She was born Caroline Amelia Moore. She marries a doctor by the name of Charles
Gloyd.
N. Rodgers: Then she marries David Nation, but we'll get to that.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, we don't want to jump to Shark here.
N. Rodgers: Right. Caroline Amelia Moore, who was called Carrie Moore, was born in 1846 and died in
1911 in Kentucky. Her father was a farmer and a slaveholder. He had some, let us say, financial
difficulties.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: They moved around because what would happen is they would run into financial difficulties,
and they would bail. There is some question as to whether he paid bills or didn't pay bills. We are not
here to besmirch his character because he is not here to defend himself. We will just say they moved
around, and they ended up in Missouri. That part of the reason they moved around, not only was the
financial troubles but also Carrie's mother was not mentally well.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's correct.
N. Rodgers: She suffered from delusions.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, she did.
N. Rodgers: At one point, her son has her committed, but she also owed him money, and he may have
had her committed so that he didn't have to pay her. There's lots of weirdness in Carrie's childhood in
terms of Carrie's parental relationships and her relationship with her siblings and parents.
J. Aughenbaugh: This continues into her adult life, does it not, Nia?
N. Rodgers: It does. Because in 1865, she meets the dashing Dr. Charles Gloyd, a Union soldier, who she
is unaware is an alcoholic, but he is already an alcoholic. She marries him in 1867. They get married.
Then she becomes pregnant, and they separate just before the birth of her daughter a year later. In
1869, Charles dies of alcoholism. In case you're wondering if this were a Hitchcock movie, this would be
called foreshadowing because his alcoholism makes it very hard for Carrie. She's now a single mother. At
a time when, single motherhood in the 1860s and early 1870s, not so great. She's probably got some
resentments. She's probably got some upset, but she also loved Charles Gloyd. He drank himself to
death, basically. She inherits her husband's land, and she decides to pack up and go to school at the
Norman Institute. But here's an interesting twist. She packs up her daughter and Mrs. Gloyd Charles
Gloyd's mother. The three women go off so that she can graduate and become a teacher. She, by the
way, took care of Mother Gloyd until Mother Gloyd's death. Like she never abandoned Ms. Gloyd's
mother, which I think says a lot about Carrie. In 1874, she marries David Nation. He was an attorney. He
was about 19, 20 years older than she was.
J. Aughenbaugh: By today's standards, we would be very skeptical of such a relationship. But back then,
it was not unusual for a young woman like Carrie was -
N. Rodgers: Especially a single mother.
J. Aughenbaugh: Single mother who was also taking care of her mother-in-law to gravitate towards, an
older man, probably well-established. He was an attorney. Back then, even to a certain extent today,
attorneys were considered professional individuals. With, as my mum and grandmother used to say,
good prospects.
N. Rodgers: Chances.
J. Aughenbaugh: I don't know if they use that expression anymore today, but my mom and my
grandmother used to say that all the time. "What are their prospects?" I'm like, "What? Searching for
gold here? What are you talking about?"
N. Rodgers: What are the chances that they will make money? David Nation, bless his heart, was not
good at anything. He was not good at being an attorney. He was not good at owning a cotton plantation,
which they tried and failed. They eventually came to operate a hotel. She stashed her previous mother
in-law in one of the rooms and one of her daughters, Charlan, and David's daughter from his first
marriage, Lola? What would now be called a blended family.
J. Aughenbaugh: Very blended. We got elements of three or four families all in one location.
N. Rodgers: God bless his heart, David Nation is surrounded by women. He's got a daughter. He's got a
stepdaughter. He's got a wife, he's got a mother-in-law that's not even related to him.
J. Aughenbaugh: They eventually move to, I love the name of this town, Medicine Lodge, Kansas.
Medicine Lodge, and for our listeners who are particularly sensitive to Native American names of towns,
etc., yes, I actually looked this up. Does have its origins, in a Native American tribe that was located in
that part of Kansas for a period of time in the mid-19th century. Good stuff.
N. Rodgers: I'm not surprised by that. I'm not surprised that out West, they would have appropriated
the names of sacred places of Native Americans. Remember that Carrie's first husband was an alcoholic,
and she has a lot of feelings about alcohol and alcohol abuse, a lot of feelings.
J. Aughenbaugh: Add to this, listeners, remember, Carrie Nation's mum was not mentally well. Her mom
suffered from frequent delusions. Now, I want you to pay attention to this because what Nia is going to
describe next that occurred in June of 1900. Carrie's in her mid-40s.
N. Rodgers: Carrie has a heavenly vision. In the vision, a voice instructs her to go to Kiowa or Kiowa. I
don't know how it's pronounced. Maybe Kiowa, K-I-O-W-A and take something in your hands and throw
at these places in Kiowa and smash them. She has already started down the path of temperance
because she had started a temperance group in Medicine Lodge. She would go into saloons, and she
would sing church hymns, because there's nothing like bringing the party down with a church hymn. She
regularly greeted bartenders with comments such as, "Good morning, destroyer of men's souls." Which
I'm going to start using on you, Aughie, "Good morning, destroyer of students' souls", because I think it's
a hilarious way to "greet" someone. But so she has told you before. Like, "Lady, what did I do to you?"
J. Aughenbaugh: Our listeners, you all are listening to two individuals that in our youth spent plenty of
quality time in bars, what they used to call saloons in the 19th century. Trust us when we go ahead and
tell you that nobody goes into a bar, including the bartender.
N. Rodgers: Except for the bartender. Not if they want to have any traction whatsoever.
J. Aughenbaugh: In some of the bars where I worked as a bartender-
N. Rodgers: Good morning, destroyer of men's souls.
J. Aughenbaugh: You walk in, and you start singing church hymns in some of the bars that I used to work
in as a bartender.
N. Rodgers: How quick would they have been thrown out?
J. Aughenbaugh: You would be lucky if you left with your life.
N. Rodgers: But part of why she got away with it is because she was a woman.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: People didn't want to manhandle her. They didn't want to pick her up and physically do
things to her. She has this vision on June 5. On June 7, she's like, "I know what you mean, voice that's
talking to me in my dreams." I'm like, "Okay. Shades of Carrie's mom." Carrie went to Dobson's saloon,
and she destroyed the cache of stock with rocks. What she called smashers. After destroying two more
saloons, a tornado hit Eastern Kansas, which he took as a sign of divine approval. Keep on with your bad
self, Carrie. I'll help you. I'll send a tornado. I don't know if a tornado had not hit if she would keep going,
but apparently she would have because she enjoyed the fan a little bit. I think she liked being known as
somebody who was a prohibitionist in-
J. Aughenbaugh: Listeners, let's be very clear. She got arrested multiple times for her efforts to go ahead
and smash the saloons.
N. Rodgers: Between 1900-1910, she was arrested 50 times. She's using rocks, and David, because he's a
sarcastic so and so, says to her, "You should use a hatchet because it'll do more damage." Which she
thought was the most sensible thing he had ever said to her in their marriage. She got a hatchet and
started going into saloons and just smashing the case. Here, check it out. She had a very modern way of
handling the fines. She gave speeches, and she sold brooches that were in the shape of hatchets.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, she did.
N. Rodgers: Between the lecture fees and the pin sales, that's how she paid her fines. She had a whole
thing going where she-.
J. Aughenbaugh: She was an example of civil disobedience. She never attempted to get out of her jail
time. In fact, she went-
N. Rodgers: She also never physically harmed a saloon owner. She could have attacked them with the
hatchets, but she did not.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
N. Rodgers: But yeah, she never once tried to get out of her jail time. She was like, "Yeah, I'll pay. I'll do
it."
J. Aughenbaugh: Because she was trying to make a larger point, which was alcohol and abuse of alcohol
was harming families. Led to premature deaths, was particularly harmful for wives and children.
N. Rodgers: She was one.
J. Aughenbaugh: That's right.
N. Rodgers: She was a wife, and she had a child of an alcoholic. She established a shelter for wives and
children of alcoholics in Kansas City, Missouri. She, as Aughie was saying, considered drunkenness to be
the cause of most of society's ills. Abuse, not going to church enough, if you think we're godless now,
she thought we were godless back in the day when everybody went to church. She-
J. Aughenbaugh: Carrie Nation represented listeners, at least two of the, if you will, groups that really
pushed temperance and eventually the Prohibition movement. One, a belief in God. There was a
religious fervor to the temperance movement rooted in various religions that warned against the ills of
alcohol.
N. Rodgers: In fact, they were almost always called the Christian Temperance.
J. Aughenbaugh: Temperance Movement. She also reflected a view of many progressives at the turn of
the 20th century. Which was that society had a responsibility to address the abuse of alcohol and drugs
that were hurting, what they claimed was the essential unit of American life, the family. That
combination was particularly potent, right?
N. Rodgers: Right. The Temperance women had a very strong belief that if their husbands did not drink,
they would not abuse them. They would not abuse their children, or at least not to the extent that they
perceived was due to alcohol abuse.
J. Aughenbaugh: Not leave their families poor because, again, at that time, the primary breadwinner for
families was men.
N. Rodgers: If he took his money and poured it all into alcohol, then-
J. Aughenbaugh: Then there wasn't money for a mortgage or rent, food on the table, clothes on the
kids' backs, etc.
N. Rodgers: Right. She had many reasons to feel this way. She gave a final speech in Eureka Springs,
Arkansas on in January 14 of 1911 during which she collapsed She fell into a coma. I don't know if that
was an outdoor speech. January 14, even in Arkansas, would have been very cold.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
N. Rodgers: I don't know if that was an outdoor speech or what, but she fell into a coma, and she died,
but she didn't die till June 9. From January 14 to June 9, she was in a coma.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. She lingered on for nearly six months, yeah.
N. Rodgers: I do want to mention the slogans on both sides because the sloganeering at this time is
really interesting. The bars and saloons, saloons, really, would have signs up that said, "Any nation
welcome except Carrie." Which I thought was pretty funny.
J. Aughenbaugh: Stop right there. The reason why that really resonated as a slogan was, at this time,
one of the dominant political movements in the United States was the Nativist movement, which was
very discriminatory against recent immigrants from certain European nations. It really tied into another,
if you will, political conflict at that time. Any nation welcome except Carrie, which was a really odd way
for a saloon to go ahead and say, "Okay, we don't care if you're Irish or Italian, German. We'll accept
people."
N. Rodgers: "People we would not normally accept, we will accept as long as you are not Carrie Nation."
J. Aughenbaugh: Carrie, yeah.
N. Rodgers: Hers because her middle name was Amelia, hers was Carrie A Nation. Nation for
prohibition.
J. Aughenbaugh: Nation for prohibition, yes.
N. Rodgers: That's the sign she carried. Carried a nation for prohibition. I think that people sometimes
don't think about how personal a conflict is. In some ways, this was extraordinarily personal for Carrie.
Carrie loved Gloyd so much that she cared for his mother until his mother died.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
N. Rodgers: She really didn't want to lose him. Now, their divorce was because of his alcoholism. She
just couldn't live with a man who was-
J. Aughenbaugh: Well, he basically drank himself to death and left-
N. Rodgers: Within a couple of years.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, and left her with a young child to fend on her own in mid-19th century in Kansas.
You want to talk about a difficult circumstance for a young woman with a young child to go ahead and
overcome?
N. Rodgers: Yeah. Charlien was six when she remarried. Those six years were probably very difficult for
Carrie.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
N. Rodgers: That and the fact that her family's money troubles were myriad. What I could not find any
information about was whether her father drank her. I don't know if she did or didn't-
J. Aughenbaugh: I couldn't find anything either. Yeah.
N. Rodgers: But that may be lost to the sands of time. Carrie had reasons for feeling what she felt. Let us
not forget Carrie committed crimes. Carrie regularly destroyed other people's property because she felt
like she had the right to do that, which, of course, we would say, "No, you can't do that." I'm not a huge
fan of hummers because I think hummers don't belong on the highways of America, I think hummers
belong like in wartime, but I would never blow up my neighbor's hummer. You know what I mean? Like
it's not-
J. Aughenbaugh: I'm conflicted because on one hand, quite obviously, Carrie Nation was destroying
public or private property. On the other hand, I have deep respect for somebody, and maybe this
reflects the fact that when I used to get in trouble all the time at school, I never tried to go ahead and
weasel my way out of the punishment. I knew what the rules were. I accepted the punishment.
N. Rodgers: I did it anyway. Exactly.
J. Aughenbaugh: Carrie Nation-
N. Rodgers: How many times was Dr. King arrested?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: He knew that's what was going to happen. He would say, "Okay, after they arrest me, here's
what you guys need to do." Like, he knew that was coming, and she knew that was coming, too. When
she would go into these saloons with a couple of other women, and they're all singing their hymns, and
she's smashing stuff up, I'm sure she said to them, "Okay, after they arrest me, here's what you need to
do. Here's what you need to say or whatever."
J. Aughenbaugh: Those who are committed to civil disobedience want to be arrested so they can go
ahead and point to a larger societal ill. Dr. King frequently did that to go ahead and show how unjust Jim
Crow laws were, right?
N. Rodgers: Right.
J. Aughenbaugh: Carrie Nation was forcing these communities, and then eventually the nation at large
to come to grips with alcohol abuse. That's the part of me that is sort of conflicted. On one hand, I was
just like, "Okay, you're destroying private property, I'm not an advocate of that." On the other hand, I
appreciate the commitment to principle of those who engage in civil disobedience. That you're willing to
accept the consequences, i.e., get arrested, because you want to draw attention to what you think is an
unjust condition that society needs to address. To me, that's always impressive.
N. Rodgers: One could argue, too. I'm sure that at the time, people who knew her and knew her
mother's illness said she's crazy like her mom but she wasn't, she was driven. She was driven, while she
may have started off with interesting visions, which we cannot discuss whether she had visions or not.
Maybe she just had very vivid dreams. Maybe she did have visions. I don't know, but what she did was
stick it out and from the time that vision came till the end of her life or till she fell into the coma, she
didn't stop. She kept going.
J. Aughenbaugh: She has elements of of righteousness that you see with individuals reformers. If you go
in-
N. Rodgers: There's a zealousness.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. After you go in and destroy a few saloons and then a tornado hits, and you see
that as a sign of divine approval, for most of us, we're just kind of sort of like, "There's maybe a
correlation, but it's not a causation." But for a zealous-
N. Rodgers: She definitely saw it. She saw it as the Lord saying, "Good job, Carrie.".
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. You are being blessed and you're just like, "Wow. I can't make that leap." There's
always a fascination for me for people who are zealous because I'm just kind of sort of like, "Wow, you
can make that leap. I can't get there." I just can't get there. But nevertheless, thank you very much, Nia.
This is for me, one of the fascinations of doing this series, is taking that deeper dive and understanding
one of the most important people in the temperance movement that culminated with the United States
passing a constitutional amendment that prohibited the sale and distribution of alcohol. A nation
founded on, according to some scholars, alcohol. The United States-
N. Rodgers: Say, rum running. Booze.
J. Aughenbaugh: Okay. Our first president-
N. Rodgers: Booze and tea.
J. Aughenbaugh: Our first president, George Washington, had a still. He made money-
N. Rodgers: They have made alcohols.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Selling his booze. Come on.
N. Rodgers: We see that Carrie's approach eventually fails with the repeal of prohibition, but she had a
good run.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, she did. Thank you, Nia.
N. Rodgers: Thank you, Aughie.