December 27, 1900
Abandoning the nonviolent tactics of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), anti-alcohol crusader Carrie Nation took an axe and smashed up the bar at the Carey Hotel in Wichita, Kansas, causing several thousand dollars in damage and landing in jail. The WCTU was founded in 1874 by women “concerned about the problems alcohol was causing their families and society.” At the time, women lacked many of the same rights as men and their lives could be ruined if their husbands drank too much; Nation’s first husband, a doctor, drank himself to death. Nation continued her saloon-smashing campaign across the country and sold souvenir hatchets to help fund her activities. She died in 1911, never living to see nationwide prohibition in America, which was established with the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and went into effect in 1920. Prohibition, considered a failure, was repealed in 1933 by the 21st Amendment.
