Finding aid for the Anti-Cigarette League of America Correspondence and Ephemera Biomed.0335
Finding aid prepared by Kelly Besser, 2021.
UCLA Library Special Collections
Online finding aid last updated 2021 January 25.
Room A1713, Charles E. Young Research Library
Box 951575
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575
spec-coll@library.ucla.edu
Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: Anti-Cigarette League of America correspondence and ephemera
Creator:
Anti-Cigarette League of America
Identifier/Call Number: Biomed.0335
Physical Description:
1 unknown
(1 folder)
Date (inclusive): 1911-1914
Abstract: The collection contains forty-eight items connected to the Anti-Cigarette League of America, from 1911 to 1914, including:
letters from Manfred P. Welcher, Field Secretary, trying to arrange the League's first convention; letters of approval for
the League or the idea of the convention, from a variety of supporters; other League ephemera.
Language of Material:
English
.
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Property rights in the physical objects belong to the UCLA Biomedical Library. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained
by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue
the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish if the Biomedical Library does not hold the copyright.
[Identification of item], Anti-Cigarette League of America correspondence and ephemera (Biomed collection 0335). Louise M.
Darling Biomedical Library History and Special Collections for the Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles.
UCLA Catalog Record ID:
6427583
Purchased from antiquarian and ephemera bookseller aGatherin' (West Sand Lake, NY), March 2010.
The Anti-Cigarette League of America, an anti-smoking advocacy group founded by Lucy Page Gaston in 1890, had substantial
success until the early 20th century in passing anti-smoking legislation in American states. Gaston, a teacher, writer, lecturer
and member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) maintained that cigarette smoking was a dangerous new habit, particularly
threatening to the young. The League campaigned not only for smoking bans in public places but also for banning cigarettes
themselves. With strong public support, between 1890 and 1930 fifteen states enacted laws to ban the sale, manufacture, possession,
and use of cigarettes; twenty-two other states considered such legislation.
The League's influence waned when the fight against alcohol trumped that against cigarettes. "The tobacco habit may be a private
and personal bad habit, but it is not in the same class as intoxicating liquor," said Wayne B. Wheeler, general counsel of
the Anti-Saloon League; a similar attitude was taken by army doctors and military officials during World War I, who claimed
tobacco calmed the weary soldier, sedated the wounded, and distracted the bored. Eventually, all the states repealed their
cigarette prohibition laws and associated smoking bans in most public places. Kansas was the last to do so, in 1927.
The 48 items inlude letters and ephemera. Most of the letters deal with arrangements for a projected first convention of the
League at the Lake Mohonk Mountain House, a Hudson River resort. The convention was canceled due to low registration.
The antiquarian bookseller aGatherin' compiled an itemized inventory which is enclosed in lieu of a container list.
Collection processed by UCLA Biomedical Library staff, 2011.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Antismoking movement -- United States -- Archival resources
Tobacco -- United States -- History