Kansas Day Celebration I: Carrie Nation (BIO Nation)

When Carry Nation marched into saloons with her hatchet in the early 1900s, patrons barricaded themselves behind closed doors, beat her with a broom, and hurled raw eggs. Twice she was nearly carried away by a lynch mob. What drew this gritty woman to the temperance cause that she eventually personified? In this new biography, Grace retells the life of Nation from her upbringing in Kentucky and devastating first marriage to her ascendancy as a full-time smasher, preacher, lecturer, off-Broadway performer, and, from time to time, jailbird. Nation has often been lampooned for her obsession with "hatchetation," but Grace's biography lets readers see that, in her day, Nation was widely admired as a riveting speaker and offered a model of politically active womanhood at a time when states still legislated whether or not women could wear trousers. The book admirably interweaves early 20th-century religious culture, regional politics, the suffrage and temperance movements, and the woman who worked zealously to unite them all. (Library Journal's Review from Amazon.com)