Transcript Document

Carrie A. Nation lead a one-woman
crusade against the “Demon Rum”.
Carrie A. Nation was an iconic figure of early
American social consciousness-raising.
In the 1800’s, alcoholism had reached epidemic
proportions in the United States. Especially at a
time when women and children had almost no
legal standing in courts of law, the downstream
effects on American families were disastrous:
Men were throwing away their earnings on drink,
and the resulting household poverty—and the
malnutrition and material and emotional privation
that go with it—were a national disgrace.
Carrie A. Nation took it upon herself to address
this situation with a direct, “hands-on” approach;
by taking up a hatchet, storming into saloons
(bars) around the countryside, and doing as much
physical damage as she could to the premises,
before being hauled off by local authorities.
In this way, Ms. Nation wound up being
something of a lightning rod for a national
discourse on the rights of women and children,
and ultimately a perhaps unwitting harbinger of
the feminist movement in America.
“The Nazis
believed in
‘free
speech’…
…for other
Nazis.”
—Professor Noam Chomsky
“...I do not like [the
Robert G. Ingersoll
word "toleration"].
When you say "I
tolerate," you do not
say you have no right
to punish, no right to
persecute. It is only a
disclaimer for a few
moments and for a
few years, but you
retain the right. I deny
it.”