Carry Nation’s Hatchetation

She was a big woman—six feet, 175 pounds—and she could wield an axe like a lumberman, which she did time and again to break up salons in her drive against “demon rum, tobacco, corsets, short skirts and masturbation.” The woman born Carrie Amelia Moore so believed that God wanted her to “Carry A. Nation,” that she changed the spelling of her first name. And if she had to go it alone much of the time, fine with her. She'd later reveal it was her alcoholic first husband, who abandoned h