User:Pgramsey/LucyPageGaston

Lucy Page Gaston (1860-1924) was an anti-tobacco crusader of the late 19th and early 20th century. She was the founder of the Anti-Cigarette League of America, which had as its goal the abolition of cigarettes.

Early Life

Lucy Gaston was born Lucy Jane Gaston in Delaware, Ohio to a family involved in abolition and temperance movements. Census records show that in 1870 the family was living in to Henry, Illinois. In 1873 they transferred their church membership to the Lacon First Presbyterian Church, Lacon, Illinois. In 1876 she received a certificate to teach school, one year before graduating from high school in Lacon. She attended Illinois State Normal School (now Illinois State University) in 1881 and 1882, where it is reported that she participated in smashing saloons with clubs and axes, ten years before Carrie Nation's first such adventure.

In 1890, Lucy changed her middle name from Jane to Page, to be the same her mother's maiden name. She was working for the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in LaSalle, Illinois.

By 1893 she and her family, including her parents and fellow activist brother, Edward Page Gaston, were living in Harvey, Illinois, a Chicago suburb that prohibited the sale of alcohol through property deed restrictions. In 1895 Harvey officials issued a license for a tavern, and Lucy, then managing editor of the Harvey Citizen, led an ultimately unsuccessful protest by temperance advocates.

Anti-Cigarette League

The WCTU viewed tobacco as a vice often associated with alcohol, though not necessarily with the same destructive capacity. Lucy Gaston viewed cigarettes as an evil unto themselves. She founded the Chicago Anti-Cigarette League in 1899, the first group of its kind in the United States. The group quickly went nationwide and beyond, establishing chapters around the United States and Canada, claiming as many as 300,000 members.

The Anti-Cigarette league had considerable success in the early years of the 20th century, and was instrumental in having cigarette bans passed in 14 states between 1899 and 1909.

Gaston's method included publication of anti-cigarette materials, lobbying legislatures as well as personally appealing to people to stay away from cigarettes. She sponsored dances, sports leagues, and writing contests to promote the message. Her anti-smoking magazine The Boy often contained anecdotes of destructive behavior due to cigarette smoking.

Gaston published magazines for children containing advice on avoiding smoking, and personally haunted less reputable neighborhoods of Chicago, calling down boys for smoking and inducing them to sign the "Clean Life Pledge." Gaston also pressured merchants not to hire persons who smoked and admonished the Chicago Cubs baseball team over their use of tobacco. She promoted chewing gentian root Gentiana lutea to reduce the craving for tobacco, and would regularly offer it to smokers trying to quit the habit.

Gaston received support from a number of prominent organizations and persons. The Salvation Army and YMCA prominently opposed smoking. Montgomery Wards of Chicago and Wanamaker's Department Stores of Philadelphia refused to hire smokers, as did several railroads. Prominent men who supported the league included Andrew Carnegie, Julius Rosenwald, William Thorne, Henry Ford, and heavyweight boxing champion John L. Sullivan, who had once been driven into hiding by Carrie Nation over his saloon ownership. Many of these (particularly Ford and Sullivan) were not completely opposed to tobacco, just to the relatively new and foreign vice of cigarettes, as opposed to the more traditional cigar or chewing tobacco. Many of the league's loudest cheerleaders were cigar makers, who saw the profit in frightening cigarette smokers away from their new habit and back to their traditional smokes.

Gaston's efforts to secure legislation seemed to have reached a successful result in 1907, when the Illinois legislature passed a law prohibiting the manufacture and sale of cigarettes. The law was challenged by a Chicago tobacconist, and was overturned by a judge on a seeming technicality, noting that the title of the law was to "regulate" the sale of cigarettes when, in fact, it was a prohibition. The decision was upheld by the state Supreme Court, who also noted ambiguities in the law such that it could not be clear whether or not it prohibited pure tobacco cigarettes.

When World War I started, cigarettes were considered a vital war material. Even the YMCA relented, participating in collecting and distributing cigarettes for soldiers. Gaston continued her opposition, even to the point of filing lawsuits to prevent the transhipment of cigarettes through Kansas, where they were illegal. These attempts lead to nothing except loss of public esteem for Gaston.

Post War

After the war, with alcohol prohibition in place, some felt (e.g. evangelist Billy Sunday) that tobacco prohibition would soon follow. This was not to be, as many men came back from the war with a cigarette smoking habit. Many women had also picked up the habit in wartime, reflected in an increase in cigarette consumption from 134 per person per year before the war to 330 after. Gaston felt that the organization she had created had lost its zeal, and began to openly criticize it, leading to her firing in 1920.

In 1920, Gaston declared herself to be a candidate for President of the United States, on the platform of "clean morals, clean food and fearless law enforcement." She self deprecatingly pointed out her physical resemblance to Abe Lincoln, and contended that Republican candidate (and unabashed cigarette smoker) Warren G. Harding had "cigarette face", a malady that was not well defined but readily apparent to Gaston. She dropped out long before the election. After Harding won the election she did succeed in getting him to pledge to no longer smoke in public.

After her separation from the payroll of the Anti-Cigarette League, Gaston personal financial situation became very strained, but continued to hand out press releases and gentian root. She was struck by a streetcar early in 1924. During treatment it was discovered that she had throat cancer, and she died August 20. Numerous newspapers and even a tobacco trade publication noted her passing in articles that were complementary of her character.