The scaled-down oil refineries and fossilized creatures of the Kansas Oil Museum in El Dorado will have temporary guests through the first week of January. A traveling exhibit covering America’s driest period in history—alcohol prohibition—is currently on display. It includes the story of Carrie Nation, one of the more colorful characters in the history of Kansas. KMUW’s Sean Sandefur has more…
Spirited: Prohibition in America
In a wing of the Kansas Oil Museum in El Dorado, interactive panels, historical artifacts and photographs tell the story of America’s attempt to sober up the country. The temperance movement that began in the late 19th century eventually led to the adoption of the 18th Amendment, which was passed in 1920. It outlawed the manufacturing, transportation and distribution of alcohol. The amendment stood until 1933.
Anna Bassford-Woods is the executive director of the museum. She and her staff unpacked Spirited: Prohibition in America, a traveling exhibit that's part of a larger collection maintained by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The exhibit dives into some of the reasoning behind prohibition. Bassford-Woods says at the time of the turn of the century, folks drank a lot of alcohol.
“The average American would actually have the equivalent of four shots of 80-proof whiskey a day,” she says. “It really was becoming an issue for society.”
The temperance movement was supported for a number of reasons, according to Bassford-Woods. Rampant alcoholism hurt both the workforce and life at home. Because of domestic abuse, women--although still lacking the right to vote--led the charge. Perhaps most famous among them was Carrie Nation.
Carrie Nation's All The Rage In Kansas
Below is a recording from 1901 which criticizes the efforts of Carrie Nation
This wax cylinder recording was written and performed by Steve Porter for the Columbia Phonograph Company. The masterful lyrics decry, “Women wear the pants in Kansas,” a reference to the hatchet-wielding Carrie Nation and her followers. Who, for about a decade, walked into saloons across Kansas and smashed any bottle or barrel of alcohol they could find.
Seth Bate works for the Center of Community Support and Research at Wichita State University. While having nothing to do with his job, Bate happens to be an expert on Carrie Nation.
He says Nation was a longtime opponent of alcohol consumption, but the bottle smashing started in 1900. She started with incidents in Kiowa and Medicine Lodge.
Bate explains why Nation was so passionate about the temperance movement.
“The story Carrie told was that it had a lot to do with her first husband and his alcoholism,” he says. “I think Carrie more broadly had a concern about women in Kansas—and women in general—who didn't always have a lot of influence in their own households.
“There was a stereotype at the time, of the man drinking all the wages and leaving nothing to support wives and children at home.”
Starting in 1880, the state of Kansas adopted prohibition into its own constitution. But, feeling as though the laws on the books weren’t being enforced, Bate says Nation took things into her own hands.
Break Up That Den Of Vice
“I told the owner, Mr. Dobson, ‘get out of the way, I don’t want to strike you, but I’m going to break up this den of vice.’ I began to throw at the mirror and the bottles below the mirror. Mr. Dobson and his companion jumped into a corner, seemed very much terrified. From that, I went to another saloon until I had destroyed three.” - Carrie Nation, from an excerpt of Prohibition: A Film By Ken Burns and Lynn Novick
Nation began to rampage through Kansas. On December 27, 1900, she entered what is now the Eaton Hotel on Douglas Street in Wichita, and broke mirrors and liquor bottles inside the luxurious lobby. She was arrested and eventually released. She then made her way to the state capital.
“There’s this great image I have of Carrie Nation leading college students through the streets of Topeka, with a battering ram that they fashioned overnight to go through tavern doors,” Bate says.
She would even take her campaign to the desk of Kansas Governor William E. Stanley, where she demanded he do something about the lack of enforcement of the state’s prohibition laws. Stanley simply dismissed her, which was common for those who met her. Nation was not known for affecting policy changes.
“The problem that Carrie had was that beyond getting attention, and a pretty skillful use of the media, she didn't have a sense of how to sustain that kind of momentum," Bate says. "She pretty quickly became a parody of herself. And so, I think by the time people were trying to attempt more serious prohibition efforts, Carrie Nation was probably a liability.”
Nation died in Leavenworth, Kansas in 1911, nine years before nationwide prohibition was ratified. Bate says her lasting impact is unclear, but that she shouldn’t be known only as a crusader against alcohol. She was also an outspoken supporter of women’s suffrage, and an imposing female figure in a male-dominated society.
Bate also says she wasn’t as serious as many think.
“The reason I really have become entranced with Carrie is that she was so funny," Bate says. "Because of the things that she stood for and her devoutness, I'm not sure people would have considered that. But, if you read what she wrote, she was an incredibly witty person with a sense of humor about herself and the world.”
Despite the nationwide repeal of prohibition in 1933, it wasn’t lifted in Kansas until 1948. On-premise liquor sales were banned until the mid-1980s. According to the Kansas Department of Revenue, there are still 12 counties that do not allow liquor to be sold by the drink.
Carrie Nation would be proud.
