Smash, Smash, Smash!
HISTORY This Week
The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios
4.5 • 4.2K Ratings
🗓️ 8 March 2021
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
March 9, 1901. From a jail cell in Topeka, Kansas, temperance vigilante Carry Nation is hard at work. After her latest arrest for smashing up a bar with her infamous hatchet, Nation decides to spread her message with paper and ink. The first issue of The Smasher’s Mail would be published on this day, with Nation arranging the entire endeavor from behind bars. The newsletter was only a small part of her crusade against “hell-broth,” which included everything from destroying saloons to starring in her own burlesque shows. But when considering how alcohol altered her life’s journey, were her methods really all that extreme?
Special thanks to Fran Grace, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Redlands and author of Carry A. Nation: Retelling the Life.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The History Channel, original podcast. |
| 0:04.8 | History this week, March 9, 1901. |
| 0:09.9 | I'm Sally Helm. |
| 0:12.6 | The front page of this newspaper features a photo of a middle-aged woman in a black dress and a bonnet. |
| 0:19.1 | In one hand, she's carrying a Bible. |
| 0:22.0 | In the other, a hatchet. |
| 0:24.1 | The caption identifies this woman as Mrs. Carrie Nation, |
| 0:29.2 | quote, leader of the greater smashing reform crusade. |
| 0:35.1 | The newspaper is called The Smashers Mail. |
| 0:38.2 | And today, March its first edition. |
| 0:41.2 | Carrie Nation put it together from the Shawnee County Jail into Biccancis, |
| 0:45.2 | where she was arrested after smashing up some saloons with a hatchet as part of her fight for temperance. |
| 0:52.1 | She believes alcohol is a menace, a danger to the nation. |
| 1:01.1 | Not everyone agrees with her. |
| 1:04.0 | The first section of her newspaper is titled Letters From Hell. |
| 1:08.6 | These are from people who do not want Carrie to smash up their saloons. |
| 1:13.2 | Here's one from Duluth, Minnesota. |
| 1:15.7 | Quote, I see you have finally got your position in jail among the rest of the thieves and criminals. |
| 1:21.1 | You old dirty thing, the jail is too good for an old bladder like you. |
| 1:27.2 | Another from a saloonkeeper in Dallas is addressed to that blockhead Carrie Nation. |
| 1:33.2 | Another, confusingly, calls her a lobster, which was an insult at the time. |
| 1:40.3 | But The Smashers Mail also includes letters from nations supporters. |
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