Carrie Amelia Moore didn’t care for alcohol and she didn’t mince words about it. But it was her axe-wielding that got most of the attention. One of the earliest and most ardent prohibitionists, Carrie Nation, as she came to be known, was infamous for entering bars and taking her axe to the inventory. No law could stop her and eventually she and her kind got the law changed, and for a while America was a dry country–well, apart from speakeasys and bathtubs and flasks. (For a good book about the period, read Daniel Okrent’s Last Call.)

On one visit to Atlantic City in 1901, Nation behaved unusually soberly, didn’t go crazy with an axe, and sort of disappointed everyone. From the August 19 New York Times of the year:

“Atlantic City, N.J.–Mrs. Carrie Nation has come and gone, and there was not a smashing nor anything else sensational. The hopes of the crowds that she would use a hatchet upon some saloonkeeper’s outfit were accordingly dashed.

Mrs. Nation sold 2,500 of her souvenir hatchets at 25 cents each, so that her day’s work was highly profitable. She took a bath in the ocean this morning, and later spoke to an audience of 5,000 persons. Her talk was on morals.

Her visit was a great disappointment for it was hoped that to liven things she would proceed to some of her characteristic acts. Perhaps that she did not do so was partly due to the weather, which was not conducive to enjoyment.”