Teetotaler baby names: Prohibition, Carrie Nation

Agents dumping illegal liquor following a raid in NYC during the Prohibition era

Speaking of Temperance…I’ve discovered three U.S.-born people named Prohibition.

None of them were actually born during the U.S. Prohibition (1920-1933), though. They were all born in the 1880s, while the temperance movement was still on the rise.

  • Prohibition Campbell (female) born on June 27, 1882, in Iowa.
  • Ernest Prohibition Manhart (male) born on November 22, 1886, in North Dakota.
  • Albert Prohibition Sparkman (male) born on April 28, 1887, in Tennessee.

I’ve also found nearly two dozen baby girls named Carrie Nation, presumably after radical temperance advocate Carrie A. Nation (1846-1911). They were born around the turn of the century or a little later, and most came from Texas. Three examples:

  • Carrie Nation Palmer, born on August 8, 1906, in Texas.
  • Carrie Nation Hartzell, born on July 7, 1909, in Indiana.
  • Carrie Nation Brooks, born on December 4, 1901, in Oklahoma.

Image: LOC

One thought on “Teetotaler baby names: Prohibition, Carrie Nation

  1. Carrie was also known as “Carry Nation,” according to the Encyclopedia of Women in the American West:

    In 1901, Nation changed the official spelling of her name from Carrie to Carry; she claimed that a family Bible indicated the latter as the correct spelling. The name change just happened to provide a catchy slogan for her prohibitionist crusade.

    Despite this, most newspapers referred to her as “Carrie Nation.”

    So far I’ve only spotted one baby girl named “Carry Nation” — she was born in Texas in 1902.

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