Carrie Nation was born in 1846, the daughter of a Kentucky farmer. Her family moved around a lot during the Civil War and, as a result, grew up mostly in poverty. In 1865, at the age of 21, she met a doctor named Charles Gloyd, and two years later, he proposed marriage. Moore's parents objected because Gloyd had a long history of severe alcoholism, and feared that his struggles with drinking would cause her nothing but pain. In November of 1867, just days before her 23rd birthday, Moore married Gloyd nonetheless. The marriage did not last long; they were separated within a year and Gloyd died from alcohol-related causes in 1869.

From that point on, Moore became increasingly opposed to drinking, which shouldn't have been an issue. By 1889, Moore, then remarried and named Carrie Nation (having taken her second husband's last name), was living in Kansas, and in 1882, Kansas had outlawed the sale and manufacture of alcohol. As a believer in the temperance movement living in a dry state, Nation should have been quite happy -- but, for better or for worse, Kansas rarely enforced this prohibition. 

So she took matters into her own hands. And she also grabbed some rocks and ultimately, as seen below, a hatchet.

I was awakened by a voice which seemed to me speaking in my heart, these words, "GO TO KIOWA," and my hands were lifted and thrown down and the words, "I'LL STAND BY YOU." The words, "Go to Kiowa," were spoken in a murmuring, musical tone, low and soft, but "I'll stand by you," was very clear, positive and emphatic. I was impressed with a great inspiration, the interpretation was very plain, it was this: "Take something in your hands, and throw at these places in Kiowa and smash them."

I ran behind the bar, smashed the mirror and all the bottles under it; picked up the cash register, threw it down; then broke the faucets of the refrigerator, opened the door and cut the rubber tubes that conducted the beer. I threw over the slot machine…and got from it a sharp piece of iron with which I opened the bungs of the beer kegs, and opened the faucets of the barrels, and then the beers flew in every direction and I was completely saturated.