[1][3] Charles Musser, a film historian, writes that "the front page of the New York Journal was an excellent indicator of events considered worthy of the Kinetograph Department's attention throughout 1901–1902.

[6] With production supervised by James H. White,[7] Porter was assisted by George S. Fleming during the creation of Kansas Saloon Smashers.

[8] While none of the identities of the people who appeared in the picture are recorded,[1] it is known the women in the film were played by men in drag, rendering them sexually unattractive.

[10] Kansas Saloon Smashers features stop action techniques, used to portray Nation destroying the bar;[11] it was shot in black-and-white.

[14][15] In Musser's book The Emergence of Cinema, he writes that "the women's invasion of a male refuge is seemingly attributed to sexual frustration and the concomitant need for revenge,"[10] while author Karen Blumenthal opined that Kansas Saloon Smashers suggests women were only attacking due to a few miscreants being present in the establishments.

[16] Critic Alan Scherstuhl wrote in Village Voice that the film worked as "evidence that the first things our visual mass-media culture sold to its audience were comic licentiousness — and the impulse to clean such filth up.

"[17] Initially advertised as Mrs. Carrie Nation and Her Hatchet Brigade,[4] Kansas Saloon Smashers was distributed by Edison Studios and first released on March 16, 1901.

[18] Upon release, the film was screened at Bradenburgh's Ninth and Arch Street Museum in Philadelphia, where it received an entire bill.

[10] Siegmund Lubin had attempted to capitalize on the success of Kansas Saloon Smashers by making a film where Nation herself appeared; when he was unable to contact her, an actress was hired to play her.