When and Why the Anti-Smoking Movement Began

… It’s not what you think

“The tumult surrounding tobacco’s damaging effects did not spontaneously arise in twentieth-century America. Contrary to the opinion of some, an anti-tobacco movement existed during the period of 1800 to 1870, with the first organized actions beginning in the 1830s, during a time of heightened reform activism in the United States. Periodical literature in that era contained numerous attacks on the pernicious weed. These reformers believed that there were agricultural, social, physical (health), and moral evils inherent in its production and use…” –Shane A. Smith, Ed.D.

Introduction

When I acquired the 16-page, March 1918 issue of The No-Tobacco Journal (“Official Organ of the No-Tobacco League of America”) 25 years ago, it seemed little different from the many other polemical anti-tobacco pamphlets and religious tracts from the mid-19th century and early-20th century in the Center’s collection. But coming across it again early this year, I did a double-take when I read the front-page heading, “For the Salvation of Our Boys – And the Race,” the advertisement on page 2 for a monthly magazine, Practical Eugenics, and the back-page ad for “Books on the Clean Life – Race Betterment.”

In our current era of political polarization, rising racism, and xenophobia, I wondered if the race-based eugenics* movement might have been one of the driving forces of the anti-cigarette crusades of the Progressive Era (1900-1930), so named because of its many social, political, and economic reforms. I was stunned to learn that Lucy Page Gaston (1860-1924), founder in 1899 of the Anti-Cigarette League of America (which would eventually claim 300,000 members), was a speaker at the First National Conference on Race Betterment in 1914, at which one presentation was entitled, “Tobacco: A Race Poison.” Several other public figures whose names appear on the mastheads of anti-cigarette newsletters were champions of forced sterilization and white supremacy. The American icons Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh were outspoken opponents of cigarettes – and even more outspoken proponents of antisemitism. This exhibition features examples of their anti-cigarette propaganda, as well as the fervent appeals and sermons of a variety of anti-tobacco organizations.

Ultimately – and fortunately – I have not found sufficient evidence to suggest that the connection between anti-smoking crusaders and proponents of eugenics represented more than an earnest quest for better health. Historian Jon Butler, Howard R. Lamar Professor Emeritus of American Studies, History, and Religious Studies at Yale University and a past president of the Organization of American Historians, agrees. “The eugenics movement we know most about was deeply patronized by liberal Protestants but had a very minimal connection to the anti-smoking movement.”

I had long assumed that the modern anti-smoking movement, which began in the 1960s, emanated from the accumulation of epidemiologic and pathologic evidence that indicted cigarette smoking as the leading avoidable cause of lung cancer and heart disease, as well as from the grassroots advocacy of individuals and groups for smoke-free restaurants, airlines, and other public places. But when all is said and done, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists has led the way for more than a century in health-based appeals to give up smoking or to never start. The concluding portion of this exhibition highlights their efforts.

I had also believed that 19th century anti-tobacco advocacy consisted mostly of fulminations by religious zealots like the Reverend George Trask (1796-1865), publisher of the Anti-Tobacco Journal from 1857 to 1872. But the essay by historian Shane A. Smith, included in this exhibition, provides a corrective assessment. The 19th century arguments against tobacco were far more scientifically-based than we like to admit, especially those of agricultural experts. Perhaps the medical indictment of cigars and chewing tobacco by famed physicians Benjamin Rush and Benjamin Waterhouse was only partly accurate, but their entreaties to abjure the use of tobacco were written before the advent of cigarettes and the epidemic of lung cancer. Smith argues that 19th century opponents of tobacco were no slouches. His essay is essential reading.

Alan Blum, MD
Director, The Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society
September 5, 2024

*The word “eugenics” was coined in 1883 by British scientist Francis Galton, a half-cousin of Charles Darwin. Galton believed that it was possible to produce a highly gifted race of men
through selective breeding, which he termed “positive eugenics.” Introduced in the United States in the 1890s, eugenics was well-received by educated Anglo-Saxon Protestants worried about the threat of the influx of eastern and southern European immigrants to “American stock.” Over the next 30 years, eugenics advocates succeeded in convincing legislatures in 24 states to pass laws mandating the sterilization of the mentally unfit. The most terrible legacy of eugenics policies was perpetrated by the Nazis against Jewish, Slavic, and Roma populations, as well as homosexuals and political dissidents. (Adapted from the catalogue of the exhibition “Perfecting mankind: Eugenics and Photography,” curated by Carol Squiers, International Center of Photography, New York, January 11-March 18, 2001)

THE NO-TOBACCO JOURNAL
“For the Salvation of Our Boys—
And the Race” (16 pages)

Official Organ of The No-Tobacco League of America
H. Higley, Editor and Publisher
March 1918

“The Harm of Tobacco” (page 6)
By Charles G. Pease, M. D.
President Non-Smokers’ Protective League of America

(Dr. Charles Griffin Pease [1854-1941] practiced and taught dentistry and medicine in New York City. “Pease waged an unrelenting war against ‘everything that harms the human race,’ [including] tobacco use; alcohol, coffee, tea and ginger ale consumption; corset wearing; vinegar, meat, cocoa, chocolate and condiment intake, and even the licking of artificially flavored lollipops…His anti-tobacco stance was based chiefly on moral, ethical and religious precepts. Additionally, he expected community role models (public health officials, clergymen, physicians and dentists) to become involved in this vital health issue. When publicly presenting his cause, he used a moralistic, judgmental approach. Almost single handedly, Pease spear-headed legislation that prohibited smoking in subways, elevated trains, hotels and restaurants.”

Source: Christen AG, Christen JA: Charles G. Pease, DDS, MD: anti-tobacco crusader and clean life advocate. Journal of the History of Dentistry 2001, volume 49, number 2, pages 81-86.)

“…The tobacco smoker is abnormal.

“This fact becomes apparent to him when his supply of tobacco becomes exhausted and no means of replenishing it are at hand. Lacking the narcotic effect of the poison, the symptoms of his abnormality are painfully present and he demands the continuance of the poison that the narcotic effect thereof may continue to mask the evidences of the harm he has done and is doing himself. These are nervousness, apprehension, insomnia and frequent fits of passion – a beautiful condition for members of the human race to establish within themselves and expect to be classed as respectable citizens.

“Tobacco was taken from the medical list years ago because its use medicinally was accompanied by so many deaths, even when applied externally, it was considered too dangerous to be used as a remedy.

“The human race has become so depraved that appeals to chivalry, to manhood and to womanhood seem to be of no avail in the case of the major part of humanity, no matter what the evidence indicating the wrong of their practices.

“Is it any wonder the human race has gotten to the place where it is slaughtering itself as one of the self inflicted punishments?”

Practical Eugenics
The Clean Life and Race Betterment
On Broad and Intelligent Lines. (page 2)

In-house advertisement by L.H. Higley, Publisher, Butler, Indiana, for this monthly magazine

“…Every Christian who wants to exercise the most intelligent and effectual influence for the moral betterment of the race should be a subscriber to Practical Eugenics…”

“Books on the Clean Life – Race Betterment” (page 16)
In-house advertisement by L.H. Higley, Publisher, Butler, Indiana, for 10 eugenics-related books

“NO RED CROSS MONEY” (pages 6-7)

“At the Prohibition Convention in Chicago, Mrs. Frances Beauchamp accused the American Red Cross with sending tobacco to the soldiers, and said:

‘The American Tobacco company–the tobacco trust–has prevailed upon the Red Cross to aid in extending the use of tobacco among the soldiers of our country. It is regrettable that such a great organization with the support of the United States government would consent to such insidious practices.

‘In the training camps of my state it has been reported to me that thousands of boys who never smoked before are now smoking the vile cigarette.

‘A large percentage of the men who are rejected from army service are rejected because of tobacco heart. They are left at home to pick out the prettiest and finest of our girls while the clean young manhood of our nation goes to war. It endangers the future generations.’

“Marquis Eaton, head of the Chicago chapter of the Red Cross, I had this to say when informed of Mrs. Beauchamp ‘s speech:

“‘No Red Cross money, so far as I know, is spent in the purchase of tobacco or cigarettes for the soldiers. The Red Cross, however, does accept gifts of tobacco and cigarettes for the soldiers and con- siders that in so doing it is gratifying the wishes of the senders and the soldiers. If that is to be condemned, then the Red Cross has and wishes no alibi.’”

PROCEEDINGS OF THE First National Conference on Race Betterment,
January 8,9,10,11,12, 1914, BATTLE CREEK, MICHIGAN (15-page excerpt; 18-page excerpt)

Published by the Race Betterment Foundation
Battle Creek, Michigan
686 pages
1914

Contents:

“THE PURPOSE OF THE CONFERENCE
To assemble evidence as to the extent to which degenerative tendencies are actively at work in America, and to promote agencies for Race Betterment.”

Officers, Central Committee, A Partial List of Organizations Represented, Local Operating Organizations, Addresses of Welcome…

…[Section on] ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO:

“Tobacco: A Race Poison”

Dr. Daniel Lichty

Discussion

Miss Lucy Page Gaston (“The Cigarette”)

Dr. Amanda D. Holcomb (“The Cigarette-Smoking Hero of Fiction” )

S. S. McClure (“Magazine Advertising of Tobacco”)

Melvil Dewey (“A League of Employers”)

Dr. Charles G. Pease (“The Non-Smokers’ Protective League of America”)

Dr. Lichty:“…Procreation when either parent is alcoholized, or tobacco narcotized, should be prohibited, whether this be acute or chronic. In either way it affords a good example of transient blastophthoria in which the germ-plasm, sperm-plasm, is damaged, so that degenerative progeny is very likely to result.

“Nicotine begets very decidedly neuropathic stock. The heredity of nicotine-tainted stock is never on the right side. Nicotine is an ethical as well as a race poison. Heredity as a science has made rapid progress and is advancing. Humans are entitled to equal consideration with plants and animals. Propagation should be made selective from both sides. There might well be a parent inspection before there is the child and pupil inspection, before the ‘Better Babies’ enter their contests. There needs be a standard of narcotic-free fatherhood before a standard of childhood and scholarship is demanded. Prophylaxis should precede prosecution and segregation. It is realized that statistics are the mystics of argument. The aggregate of life is made up of vicissitudes of transmigration, climate, environment, vocational disease and accidents, habit and habit-heredity, disease and disease-heredity, alcohol, syphilis, and tobacco. Alcohol is in almost universal use. Syphilis is all too prevalent; its spirochetae leave their unmistaken trail in rural and mural ‘Damaged Goods.’ But there is a bane as prevalent as all these combined. It is the Race Poison, Tobacco; it is running a neck-and-wreck race with syphilis and alcohol for supremacy. No athletic or scholarship test has ever been made in which non-smokers did not excel the smokers; a similar comparison would militate against progeny…”

Miss Gaston:“…In this Race Betterment Conference I wish there might be some ringing protest that would reach every nook and corner of this land, warning· the people against the dangers from this. Ninety per cent of the high school boys and the college students today are addicted to cigarettes or to some form of tobacco, and because tobacco in some form is the vice, the popular vice, of good men, it is only the most incidental mention that is given to this question.

“But, friends, what can we do about it — this question that we are struggling with at our headquarters at the Woman’s Temple in Chicago and that our paper, The Boy magazine, the official organ of the league, is dealing with? Today we are undertaking to organize a force. The strength or the charm of organization to youth is well known. We have a plan of organization that should be introduced in every community in the country. There seems to be something about this anti-cigarette movement, this ‘A. C. L.’ button, that arouses the heroic element in the young American.

“Today the prohibition movement is the thing, but it is only part of the thing that is needed. What we need today is a great inspirational campaign for total abstinence, not forgetting tobacco and the other drugs that this good Doctor from Alabama brought to the front. We ought to have in every community a clean-life movement. Anti-Cigarette League stands not only for anti-cigarette league but for a Clean Life — yes, a Christian Life, a Consecrated Life…”

S.S. McClure (of McClure’s Magazine) responds to a question:

“Dr. E. G. Lancaster, President Olivet College, Olivet, Mich.: Isn’t it true that the tobacco advertisements are so valuable to a live magazine that they cannot do without them financially?

“S. S. McClure: That is not true; that is not true at all. It is not half true. All advertisements are valuable to the magazine in the way of money. The advertising in magazines has grown a great deal less than it was a few years ago, so that many magazines that a few years ago would refuse tobacco advertisements are now accepting them. Some of them hate to accept them, but they all do it, they all accept them-just as Harper’s Weekly for many years accepted whiskey advertisements, when other magazines would not. Magazines won’t take whiskey advertisements and patent medicine advertisements, but their morality is just to the point where they will take tobacco advertisements.”

On a per capita basis, the number of machine-made cigarettes consumed in the United States 1900 was just 54 per adult or 0.16 pound. Cigarettes were not popular at the start of the 20th Century compared to chewing tobacco, cigars and pipes. By 1963, per capita cigarette consumption was 4345. In 1998 it was 2261. Today consumption has declined to 800 per year, reflecting the national adult smoking prevalence rate of 12%.

Graph provided by Donald R. Shopland, former director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office on Smoking and Health (1984-1987). He began his 50-year career with the United State Public Health Service as a staff member of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General on Smoking and Health.

To view his presentation on the 60th anniversary of the publication of the Surgeon General’s Report, click here.

“The Pernicious Weed: Anti-Tobacco Perspectives in Periodical Literature, 1800-1870” (30 pages)

Essay by Shane A. Smith
The Historian
Volume 77, number 1, pages 26-54
2015

“Writers blasted tobacco’s soil depleting aspects, which did not allow planters to achieve a sustainable, profitable future. The amount of labor required was said to be out of proportion to any gain it provided, which led to poorly maintained farms and little food crop production, starving the grower and his livestock. Furthermore, authors detailed the weed’s social hazards. Ruined carpets and clothes, dirty church floors, smoke-filled public spaces, and poor manners, as well as offenses to women, followed in its wake. Tobacco was an expensive luxury with no practical purpose. The laziness it generated ultimately stunted the social mobility of its users, leading many to risk poverty. Activists also identified numerous health hazards associated with tobacco use. These included the dangers of second hand smoke, cancer, and tuberculosis, in addition to its addictiveness. No part of the body appeared immune to tobacco’s poisonous qualities and it received blame for numerous annual deaths. Finally, reformers highlighted the moral risks the weed posed. Tobacco was a forbidden fruit that led users to risk their very souls…

Shane A. Smith discusses his essay “The Pernicious Weed: Anti-Tobacco Perspectives in Periodical Literature, 1800-1870”. Recorded August 21, 2024. (17:30)

Smith is an adjunct lecturer at the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where he teaches professional and personal development to MBA students coming from the aerospace and defense fields. He is also an instructor in the MBA program at American Public University. After receiving an MA in History in 1995 at East Tennessee State University, where he wrote his thesis on anti-tobacco efforts in the 19th century, he earned a Doctor of Education at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Smith served for over 24 years as an intelligence officer in the United States Air Force. During his military service, he was selected for three command assignments, in which he led groups of up to 1,500 military, civilian, and contractor personnel. He retired in 2019 with the rank of Colonel.

“Leading names in the anti-tobacco movement of this period [1800-1870] include those of Gerrit Smith (1797–1874), Horace Mann (1796–1859), Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87), Horace Greeley (1811–72), George Trask (1798–1875), Joel Shew (1816–55), Orin Fowler (1791–1852), Russell Thatcher Trall (1812–77), and John Hartwell Cocke (1780–1866). Except for Cocke, all of these were Northerners who also participated in the anti-liquor and anti-slavery campaigns. Southern reformers largely focused on agricultural concerns and rarely linked with the Northern school, which set out to eradicate use. Authors borrowed freely from one another and presented the same sensational cases and fantastic statistics…”

— Excerpt from”The Pernicious Weed: Anti-Tobacco Perspectives in Periodical Literature, 1800-1870″

To view an interview with Dr. Shane Smith by Alan Blum, MD, click here (41:29)

“Observations upon the influence of the habitual use of tobacco upon health, morals, and property.” (13-page excerpt)

Essay by Benjamin Rush, M.D.
In Essays Literary, Moral, and Philosophical
1798

“In his 1929 History of the Medical Department of the United States Army (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Co, 1929), P. M. Ashburn commented on Rush’s influence on American medicine: ‘By virtue of his social and professional prominence, his position as teacher and his facile pen Benjamin Rush had more influence upon American medicine and was more potent in propagation and long perpetuation of medical errors than any man of his day. To him, more than any other man in America, was due the great vogue of vomits, purging, and especially of bleeding, salivation and blistering, which blackened the record of medicine and afflicted the sick almost to the time of the Civil War…

“Benjamin Rush has been hailed as ‘the American Sydenham,’ ‘the Pennsylvania Hippocrates,’ the ‘father of modern psychiatry,’ and the ‘founder of American medicine.’ The American Medical Association erected a statue of him in Washington, DC, the only physician so honored. A medical school is named after him. He was a prolific and facile writer and a very influential teacher. Yet, the only enduring mark he has left on the history of American medicine is his embarrassing, obdurate, messianic insistence, in the face of all factual evidence to the contrary, on the curative powers of heroic depletion therapy [bloodletting and purging]. Rush’s thinking was rooted in an unscientific revelation as to the unitary nature of disease, which he never questioned. He viewed nature as a treacherous adversary to be fought on the battleground of his patients’ bodies. It is hard to imagine philosophies more radically at variance with those of Hippocrates and Sydenham.”

From “Benjamin Rush, MD: assassin or beloved healer?”
Essay by Robert L. North
In Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings
Volume 13, number 1, pages 45-49
2000

Doctor Waterhouse’s Lecture on the Evil Tendency of the Use of Tobacco upon Young Persons (17 pages)

Printing of address by Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse (1754-1846) to the graduating class of Harvard Medical School
1805

“Waterhouse’s pioneering contributions to vaccination in the United States led to his being known as ‘the Jenner of America.’ Far less recognized is Waterhouse’s outspoken stance against tobacco. Indeed, his address to the students of Harvard Medical School in 18042 may well represent the earliest antitobacco lecture at an American university.

“Warning of the consequences of cigar smoking on the lungs and the adverse effects of chewing tobacco on the digestive system, he pleaded with the students to ‘quit then this pernicious habit….Take all your cigars and tobacco, and in some calm evening carry them on to the common, and there sacrifice them to health, cleanliness, and decorum.’”

From “Tobacco on campus, 1804 and today”
Letter by Alan Blum, MD
In Mayo Clinic Proceedings
Volume 82, number 5, page 639
2007

Alan Blum, MD discusses Dr. Waterhouse’s address to the graduating class of Harvard Medical School in 1804. Recorded January 7, 2022. (02:44)

ANTI-TOBACCO JOURNAL

Cover of an issue of a periodical published by George Trask between 1857 and 1872
The Anti-Tobacco Tract Depository
Fitchburg, Massachusetts

(Curator’s note: The Reverend George Trask [1796-1875], a Congregational minister, was the most well-known anti-tobacco activist of the mid-19th century. He founded the Anti-Tobacco Tract Depository in the 1850s and through his quarterly quarterly Anti-Tobacco Journal became known as the Anti-Tobacco Apostle.)

THE ANTI-TOBACCO GEM

“NO RUM, NO TOBACCO, NO PROFANITY” (4 pages)

Published monthly by C.H. Shepherd
Melvin Village, New Hampshire
April 1893

Tobacco
The Evil of It —
Deliverance From It (2 pages)

Religious anti-tobacco pamphlet by David Brinkman
Faithful Words Publishing Co.
St Louis, Missouri
Circa 1920s

“Some, in an attempt to retain their tobacco habit, have asked if the Bible says it is wrong, In answer to his I shall give ten Scriptural reasons why a real Christian should not use tobacco. (I refer to smoking, chewing or dipping, though some of my statements may apply to one form or another…”

“THE HOPE OF THE NATION” (12 pages)

The Boy
Official Advocate of the Anti-Cigaret League
Editor: Lucy Page Gaston
Volume 3, Number 6
Chicago
December 1902

“To Legislatures and to Those Who Make a Business of Killing Boys:

‘Round you we will weave a spell.
with our glorious A.C.L.,
And we hope you’ll say the cigaret must go.”

PLUCK
A PAPER FOR EARNEST BOYS AND GIRLS WHO WISH TO BECOME USEFUL: MEN AND WOMEN

Cover of the publication of the American Anti-Cigarette League
May 1902

“THEY WILL MISS THE TRAIN”
“The train for Success came with clatter along
And at Opportunity stopped…
‘Aboard! Now be ready! The guard loudly cried
To boys who their baggage had dropped.
‘Will we not miss the train to Success?’ asked John.
Oh, there’s time enough yet. We can wait.
So John with his Purpose then lingered a while,
Thinking surely he wouldn’t be late.
To make it more easy to play and to rest,
Frank sat on Ambition’s strong grip,
While Tom on the ground, his Hoves set aside,
Smoked and played, thinking nought of the trip…
But George rushed with speed, making straight for the train.
But a moment he knew it would stay.
And those who were not at the station on time
Would be left as the train sped away.”

PLUCK

3-page section about the American Anti-Cigarette League
May 1902

“I WILL NEVER USE TOBACCO IN ANY FORM”
“TOBACCO TENDS TO IDLENESS, STRONG DRINK, VICE, ILL HEALTH, INSANITY &
DEATH!”

Temperance coin
Circa 1900

“Anti-Tobacco Pledge
I hereby solemnly promise,
GOD HELPING ME,
To abstain from the use of Tobacco in any form,
And to use all means within my power to induce others to do the same.

NAME…Harold Pike
Date… May 8, 1910”

Temperance pledge card probably distributed by the Anti-Cigarette League
Circa 1910

“ONE DOZ. ASSORTED COFFIN NAILS SLOW SUICIDE”

Anti-cigarette postcard
Circa 1900

“If health and strength a man would lose,
One certain means there is to choose
Inhale the cigarette’s deadly smoke
And prematurely he will croak.”

Anti-cigarette cartoon originally published in Anti-Cigarette League literature of the 1910s, reprinted by Seventh-day Adventist publications in the 1980s

“Dear Friend”

Recruitment letter from Mrs. Caroline F. Grow, Corresponding Secretary
National Anti-Cigarette League
Chicago, Illinois
December 1906

Theodore Ledyard Cuyler, D.D. (1822-1909), Honorary President
Presbyterian minister Cuyler was an ardent supporter of the temperance movement and the
abolition of slavery.

Colonel J.H. Davidson (1839-1925), President
Businessman and civic leader in Chicago and St. Paul, Minnesota

Lucy Page Gaston (1860-1924), Vice-President and Superintendent

“Dear Friend:-

“Do the boys in your school – your church – your community smoke cigarettes? If so will you not
by your influence and your efforts aid the National Anti-Cigarette League in its pledge signing
crusade against a habit both physically and morally debasing?

“…May we not add to our number of active Deputies someone from your church – your
organization who loves the boys and girls and will assume this responsibility for them?…”

“OBJECT: The object of the national Anti-Cigarette League is to organize a National movement
for the purpose of combating by all legitimate means the cigarette habit and the use of tobacco
in any form by boys. To furtherance of this object the National Anti-Cigarette League proposes
to bring into co-operation all forces honestly working towards the same end in all countries; to
hold public meetings; publish and circulate literature; to organize and maintain Anti-Cigarette
Leagues; and in every way possible to make sentiment against the manufacture, sale and use
of cigarettes, giving special attention to needed legislation and to the enforcement of existing
laws on the subject.”

“ANTI-TOBACCOISTS IN THE UNITED STATES. WORK OF THE ‘LEGIONS OF GLOOM.'”
(FROM OUR· NEW YORK CORRESPONDENT.)

“The twentieth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America provision that: (1) The manufacture, sale, transportation, inhalation or otherwise consumption of cigars, cigarettes, pipe tobacco, cut plug and snuff is hereby prohibited. (2) The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation, and to appoint enforcement officers in every community.

“It has not yet been ratified. Indeed, there is very little prospect that it ever will pass Congress, far less be submitted to the decision of the several States. But the No-Nicotine Alliance which met in solemn session in Illyria, Illinois, last year proposed in all seriousness to endeavor to get the above amendment to the Constitution carried. And the Anti-Cigarette League, originally sponsored by that doughty ‘Carrie Nation of Nicotine,’ Miss Lucy Page Gaston, has held several national congresses, including one which met in Washington on the day President Coolidge was inaugurated, March 4 last. Public opinion has all along been fully prepared to treat the matter as a joke but for the uncomfortable reflection that the antisaloon campaign, which was for so long ridiculed led to a successful conclusion on the legal, if not on the practical side. So public opinion remains apprehensive of any reforming move initiated by the Legions of Gloom.”

From The Times of London, Special Tobacco Number
October 20, 1925

Medical Times
A Monthly Journal of Medicine, Surgery, and the Collateral Sciences (7 pages)

Muti-authored theme issue on tobacco: “Is Smoking Detrimental to Boys and Young Men?”
New York
June 1914

Highlights:

“NOTED BALL PLAYER ABJURES TOBACCO.

EDWARD T. COLLINS, A.B.
SECOND BASEMAN OF THE PHILADELPHIA AMERICAN BASEBALL TEAM (WORLD’S CHAMPIONS).
Philadelphia

“ I do not feel that I am in a position to judge as to the merits or demerits of the use of tobacco, as I have never used it in any form. Throughout my course at Columbia University, where I engaged in athletics, and in my career as a professional base ball player, I have found it incumbent upon me to be in prime physical condition at all times. I did not take up smoking as a boy, and as I have no desire for it, I have carefully refrained from the use of tobacco as a man, in the belief that I should conserve my powers to the fullest extent. Smoking may or may not be harmful to young men, but why should a boy take a chance on something which might have a deteriorating influence, when he can get along as well without taking that chance. In these days of active competition, it is necessary for a man to put forth his best efforts if he is to attain success, and he should do nothing which will detract from his natural and physical abilities in that direction.”

A REVIEW OF AUTHORITIES OPPOSED TO TOBACCO
Edward H. Cleveland, M. A., Chaplain of Riverside Hospital, New York

SYMPTOMATIC EFFECTS OF TOBACCO USING.
D. Crothers, M. D., Superintendent of Walcott Lodge Hospital, Hartford, Conn.

SMOKING IS DETRIMENTAL
William G. Anderson, Dr. P.H., M.D. Professor and Director of The Yale University Gymnasium, New Haven, Conn.

NO SMOKING UNDER 21.
Grantland Rice, A. B., Sporting Editor of The Evening Mail, New York

THE EFFECTS OF TOBACCO ON BOYS.
George L. Meylan, A.M., M.D., Medical Director, Columbia University in the City of New York

SMOKING TO THE BOY SPELLS WORTH LESSNESS.
Charles B. Towns, Superintendent of the Towns Hospital, New York

SMOKING INCOMPATIBLE WITH EFFI CIENT NERVOUS SYSTEM.
Dudley B. Reed, M. D. Medical Examiner of the University of Chicago

TOBACCO IS INJURIOUS TO BOYS
Harry L. Hillmak, Director of Athletics, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.

SMOKING AFFECTS THE HEART.
Michael J. Dokovak, for thirty years athletic director, New York Athletic Club. New York

The Youth’s Instructor
ANTI-TOBACCO JOURNAL (16 pages)

Seventh-day Adventists publication
Washington, DC
Circa 1919

“For the Sake of the Boy” (page 11)

“…herein lies the hope of the solution of the cigarette problem. It is not in legislation nor exhortation, but in example. Many graves have been dug for youthful victims of the tobacco habit, every one of whom had his life blighted because men had set him the example of smoking. A prominent editor of New York City decries the use of the cigarette by boys. This is praiseworthy. But he himself smokes freely. He should not forget that his cigar invites the boys to try the cigarette. Dr. Charles M. Sheldon says:

“’In one of the State legislatures last winter, in an atmosphere heavy with smoke, one of the representatives stood pleading for an anti-cigarette bill, while in the hand which eloquently gesticulated for the passage of the bill was a cigar! The bill went through, and became a law. And that legislator and scores of others smoked their cigars and pipes in complacent satisfaction as they read the papers next morning recording the victory of the anti-cigarette bill. Yet the legislator’s boy feels a little queer to think that it is a crime for him to use what “dad” calls a physical necessity for himself! He does not see the logic of it, and he never will, for there isn’t any.”

”The Missionary World puts the following pertinent questions to all such illogical fathers:

“’Why beholdest thou the cigarette that is in thy son’s mouth, and considereth not the cigar that is in thine own mouth? Or wilt than say to thy son,” Let me pull out the cigarette out of thy mouth,” and behold a cigar is in thine own mouth? Thou hypocrite! First cast out the cigar out of thine own mouth, then shalt thou be prepared to cast out the cigarette out of thy son’s mouth.’

“In view of the situation throughout the belligerent world, and in view of the sacrifices of boy life being annually made by the cigarette, it is highly in order for all fathers and brothers who smoke the pipe and cigar, to renounce forever the smoking habit, that their abstinence may count for conservation, and their influence for a healthy, wholesome American boyhood.”

“MEN WHO DO NOT USE TOBACCO”

2-page photo gallery in The Youth’s Instructor

William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925)
Democratic nominee for President, 1896, 1908, 1912
Crusader for Prohibition and against the teaching of evolution

P.P. Claxton (1862-1957)
United States Commissioner of Education, 1911-1921

Arthur Capper (1865-1951)
Governor of Kansas, 1915-1919
In 1923 as a U.S. Senator, Capper proposed a constitutional amendment that would have outlawed mixed-race marriages.

Lynn Frazier (1874 -1947)
Governor of North Dakota, 1917-1921

J. Frank Hanly (1863-1920)
Governor of Indiana, 1905-1909
Prohibition Party nominee for President, 1916

Charles E. Hughes (1862-1948)
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, 1910–1916
Republican nominee for President, 1916
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 1930-1941

Howard A. Kelly, MD (1858-1943)
One of the “Big Four” founding professors at the Johns Hopkins Hospital
Established gynecology as a specialty

Henry C. King (1858-1934)
President, Oberlin College, 1902-1927

David Starr Jordan (1851-1931)
Founding president, Stanford University, 1891-1913
Proponent of eugenics, racial segregation and racial purity; warned of race degeneration

Ira Landrith (1865-1941)
President, Ward-Belmont College, 1913-1915
Prohibition Party nominee for Vice-President, 1916

Ben B. Lindsey (1869-1943)
Judge of the Juvenile Court, Denver, a national model for juvenile courts, early-1900s

Daniel A. Poling (1884-1968)
Prohibition Party nominee for Governor of Ohio, 1912
Editor, Christian Herald, 1927-1966

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)
President of the United States, 1901-1909

William H. Taft (1857-1930)
President of the United States, 1909-1913
Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1921-1930

Benjamin Tillman (1847-1918)
United States Senator from South Caroline, 1895-1918
Staunch white supremacist who defended lynching.

Harvey W. Wiley, MD, PhD, LLD (1844-1930)
Champion of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906
First commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration, 1907-1912

Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)
President of the United States, 1913-1921
Defender of racial segregation

Non-Smokers’ Protective League of America (page 4)

By Dr. Charles G. Pease

“MOST great movements have their origin in the faithfulness of one person or a few persons to right principles, to a definite course of action in relation to a condition or need, without counting the cost in labor or in disadvantages,—the outcome of antagonism on the part of those opposed,—or, if they have counted the cost, are willing to meet the demand without wavering. Such movements have had small beginnings. Of such origin was the Non-Smokes’ Protective League of America, which I shall briefly recite for the encouragement of those who falter.

“In the year 1907 I began to write upon the subject of the wrong and of the injurious effects of tobacco addiction, giving much attention to the members of the clergy and of the medical profession addicted to the use of this drug, holding them to be more responsible for the enslavement of the race than any other class of men, by reason of the elevation of tobacco addiction by these men to the highest points of teaching and example relating to spirituality and to health. My fearless writings, published in the public press, created a large number of enemies, with some of whom I measured swords in the columns of the press; but many strong men came to my support, notably Prof. Burt G. Wilder, of Cornell University, and William Lloyd Garrison, of Boston, Massachusetts, since deceased. In 1910 I began my work in the subway of New York City for the stamping out of the smoking nuisance there, making many arrests, and carrying the cases to conviction under a section of the Sanitary Code prohibiting smoking in the subway. I received many letters consisting of the vilest language the most degenerate mind could command, threatening to take my life if I did not desist. I paid no attention to the threats, except that they brought forcibly to mind the realization that a sweet, wholesome, and noble practice would have no such defenders. I also received a number of commendatory letters.

“Up to April, 1910, I was doing this work alone, not supposing that anyone would unite with me in any way to prosecute or support such a work. I was simply doing my duty regardless of consequences. In the third week of the month named, two gentlemen, Mr. F. B. King and Mr. Twyman 0. Abbott, of the New York bar, both strangers to me and to each other, telephoned and also called upon me. Both asked the same question: ‘ Doctor, do you not think the time is ripe for doing an organized work?’ I answered both gentlemen in the affirmative, and sent out a call for a meeting which was held at my home on the evening of May 8, 1910, at which time we effected a temporary organization. And on Aug. 2, 1911, our organization was incorporated under the Membership Act of the laws of the State of New York.

“The league, at present, is a men’s organization. All members abstain from the use of tobacco, although this is not a requirement for membership… The league has met an urgent need in the crystallization of this opinion of educators, lawyers, medical men, and women, and men of state, finance, and commerce, who are advocates of the rights of non-smokers and opposed to the violation of said rights by tobacco smokers.

“The right to breathe fresh and pure air — air uncontaminated by unhealthful and disagreeable odors and fumes — is a natural right, is one of the ‘inalienable rights’ guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and laws of the land. This right cannot be taken away by legislatures or courts, much less by individuals pursuing their own thoughtless or selfish indulgence…”

“The Preacher Talks about Cigarettes” (pages 13-15)

” Scientists have discovered, in a series of laboratory experiments held in London under the direction of the great scientific paper, the London Lancet, that when the cigarette is lighted the burning of the tobacco and the paper produces, or creates, a new element which is set free in the smoke to enter into the body of the boy who smokes it. This new substance which is thus created is furfural, and is the thing which makes raw whisky so poisonous. And these scientists discovered that there is just as much furfural in the smoke of one cigarette as there is ounces in two fluid ounces of crude, raw whisky.”

“… ‘Remember, boys, that furfural is not in the cigarette itself, it not in the paper, or in the tobacco, and it is not put in by the maker; but no boy can smoke a cigarette without getting this into his system, for it is created by burning the cigarette, by combustion, and is in the smoke of every cigarette. You will see how fearfully dangerous cigarette smoking is when I tell you that furfural is fifty times more poisonous than ordinary alcohol. ” This will show you why it is that a cigarette smoker is likely to be the most backward boy in his class.

“His mind is being impaired every day by these terrible poisons which he is putting into his body, so he is not able to think quickly, he cannot get his lessons easily, his brain becomes dull and heavy. Finally his lungs are unable to carry off all the poisons he smokes into them, and he gets pulmonary consumption, and soon after is carried away in the hearse and put in the cemetery, all because he would smoke cigarettes. Cigarette smoking has as bad an effect upon a boy’s morals as it does upon his body, A boy who smokes will soon lie and steal. Even the making of cigarettes seems ‘to break clown a man’s moral fiber, for in the advertisements appearing in the pipers for popular brands of cigarettes, the manufacturers quote from the report of the laboratory experiments of the London Lancet, which I have mentioned, and say that these scientists declared they found that the cigarette was the least harmful method of using tobacco. This is untrue. The report did say that there is less nicotine the tobacco of the cigarette than there is in that used in cigar or pipe, or in chewing tobacco; and therefore a person who smokes a cigarette is getting a smaller amount of nicotine for the tobacco he smokes than he would get in using tobacco in any other form.

“The makers of cigarettes have advertised this fact widely to give the impression that cigarette smoking is the least harmful method of using tobacco. But in doing so they have dishonestly suppressed the additional facts of the report in the Lancet from which they have quoted. and have carefully refrained from quoting those portions of the report which show that their statement that cigarette smoking is less harmful than any other method of using tobacco, is a deliberate falsehood. The report, by showing the production of furfural in the smoke, makes it plain that there is no more harmful or dangerous way of using tobacco than by smoking cigarettes.”

“I am not much of a mathematician,” said the Cigarette, but I can add to a boy’s nervous troubles, I can subtract from his physical energy, I can multiply his aches and pains, I can divide his mental powers, I can take interest from his work and discount his chances of success.”

Blotter distributed by the Massachusetts Anti-Cigarette League
Boston
Circa 1920

“A CIGARET ARITHMETIC”

“I am not much of a mathematician,” said the Cigaret, but I can and do
Add to a man’s nervous troubles; I can
Subtract from his physical energy; I can
Multiply his aches and pains; I can
Divide his mental powers; I take
Interest from his work and
Discount his chances of success.”

Blotter distributed by the National Women’s Christian Temperance Union
Evanston, Illinois
Circa 1920

“THE CIGARET BOY

Cannot study well, is unable to stick to a job – the Boss doesn’t want him.

He joins the Down and Out Club and gets a life membership.”

Blotter distributed by the National Women’s Christian Temperance Union
Circa 1920

“HENRY FORD
SAYS:
“The YOUTH Whose brain is fogged by CIGARETTES is hopelessly handicapped. His Services Are Accepted Only as a Last Resort.”

Poster No. 11
Finnell Sales Service, Manchester, Indiana
Circa 1915

“FORD RELENTS IN JEW WAR —
AUTO KING REGRETS ATTACKS”

Front page headline, Arkansas Gazette
July 8, 1927

The Case Against the Little White Slaver
Volumes 1, 2, 3, and 4 (40 pages)

Published by Henry Ford
Detroit
1914

“And thus we have gathered from authoritative sources the best opinions based on real facts regarding the effect of cigarette smoking. From this, we note it is evident beyond question that the use of tobacco by the young man is injurious to his health. That it is injurious to a certain extent to the adult remains for us to judge from those who have continued the habit long enough to become enslaved to it and suffer the consequences.

“The world of today needs men, not those whose minds and will power have been weakened or destroyed by the desire and ‘ craving for alcohol and tobacco but instead men with initiative and vigor, whose mentality is untainted by ruinous habits.

“Every young man should aspire to take advantage of the opportunity which at some time during his life beckons him .and he should be ready with the freshness of youth and not enveloped in the fumes of an offensive and injurious cigarette.”

HENRY FORD

“Col Chas. H. Lindbergh

HE DOES NOT SMOKE DRINK CHEW OR SWEAR”

Anti-smoking poster

Indianapolis, Indiana

1929

“Lindbergh and Tobacco

“THE tobacco men and their friends would like to link the name of Lindbergh in some way with their business. They thought they had accomplished it when a report was sent out that Lindbergh smoked a cigarette at a reception in Cincinnati, stating that he did so because he objected to being made a ‘tin saint.’

“But the rejoicing among the tobacco men was stopped when, a few days later at Indianapolis, Lindbergh denied the report. William Hillman, one of the special writers assigned to Lindbergh matters, said of Lindbergh‘s attitude toward smoking, ‘Perhaps we have the secret of Lindbergh‘s great stamina and ability to go many hours without sleep. His strength has never been taxed by smoking or drinking.’ Woods Hutchinson, M.D., in an article on Colonel Lindbergh, said of him, ‘He does not cloud his exquisite balancing powers with tobacco smoke.'”

—From Junior NO-TOBACCO Annual of OUR LITTLE FRIEND

Published weekly by the Pacific Press Publishing Association

Seventh-day Adventist publication

Mountain View, California

November 1, 1929

THE INSTRUCTOR ANTI-TOBACCO ANNUAL (18 pages)

Review and Herald Publishing Assn.

Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D.C..

Volume 68, number 22

June 1, 1920

Editor, Fannie Dickerson Chase
Associate Editor, Lora E. Clement

Highlights:

“Tobacco Facts for Boys” (page 12)

“Dr. Frederick J. Pack, of the University of Utah, determined to know for himself whether smoking really unfitted boys and young men from athletic sports. He therefore wrote to twelve colleges and universities for figures.

“A total of two hundred ten men contested for positions on th first football teams in these colleges, with the result that twice as many nonsmokers as smokers succeeded in making the team.

“In one institution not a single smoker got a placed on the team. Dr. Paul found also that the lung capacity and scholarship of the nonsmokers was greater than that of the smokers.

“So, boys, if you want to be an athlete or a first-class student, tobacco will be a great hindrance to you in attaining these ends.”

PER CENTAGE SUCCESSFUL IN MAKING FIRST FOOTBALL TEAMS
Non-Smokers, 66.8 Per Cent
Smokers, 33.3 Per Cent

“The Enforcement of Prohibition” (page 15)

“The prohibition law is a part of American basic law and should be and will be enforced as the other laws of the country… For the proper enforcement of the law, the first prohibition commissioner of the United States had been appointed. Mr. John F. Kramer. He has organized a force of 1,200 men in the bureau for the administration of the law…

“The country has been divided into districts, and a supervising Federal prohibition agent appointed for each district; and Federal prohibition director with a number of Federal inspectors has been appointed for each state.
Mr. Roper is not alarmed at the spirit of opposition now manifesting itself in various parts of the country…

“‘Not all our people wanted prohibition, but neither were we unanimous for war. Prohibition has become the law of the land by the regularly prescribed processes and it is our duty now to put aside any opinions that may conflict, and observe the law…”Obedience to the law is the corner-stone of our Americanism…’”

(Curator’s note: The crusade for the prohibition of alcohol led by politically influential conservative Christian denominations was one of the most divisive and rancorous issues in America in the decade leading up to a nationwide ban on the production, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages was enacted in 1920 after 36 states had ratified a Constitutional amendment passed by Congress in 1917. Anti-Prohibition pushback finally prevailed when the amendment was repealed in 1933.)

Junior NO-TOBACCO Annual of OUR LITTLE FRIENDI (8 pages)

Published weekly by the Pacific Press Publishing Association

Mountain View California

November 1, 1929

“‘The race will lose

If tobacco we use.’

That’s what the manual says, Jim.”

“Mr. Hoover [President of the United States] Says —

“There is no agency in the world that is so seriously affecting the health, efficiency, education, and character of boys and girls as the cigarette habit; yet very little attention is being paid to it. Nearly every delinquent boy is a cigarette smoker, which certainly has much to do with it. Cigarettes are a source of crime. To neglect crime at its source is a shortsighted policy, unworthy of a nation of our intelligence.” (page 2)

“How Cigarette Fumes Harm the Youth (page 8)

“QUESTION: How does the use of cigarettes by boys and girls cause them to be nervous, to lose their power of concentration, and to have lower mental efficiency in their school world.

“ANSWER: The red blood cells are damaged and destroyed by the cigarette poisons. Therefore the tissues and vital organs of the body are constantly fed impure. and poisonous blood, and thus are rendered incapable of doing good work.

“QUESTION: Does cigarette smoking tend to make the boy or the girl careless and unreliable?

“ANSWER: Yes, the smoke is inhaled into the lungs, the poison gases are carried through the blood to the brain and to the nerve centers that control the moral sensibilities, and have a destroying effect upon them. Soon the fine edge of moral distinction is so blunted that the difference between right and wrong is blurred.”

THE CIGARETTE NEWS (4 pages)

Published monthly for the Boys and Girls Anti-Cigarette League
Chicago
June 1930

Alice Hyatt Mather, Editor
Bertha Van Hoosen, M.D., Associate Editor

“CHICAGO MEDICAL WOMEN SPONSOR CLUB”

The Chicago Council of Medical Women, with Eloise Parsons, M.D., acting president, and Alice Conklin, M.D., president elect, sponsored the exhibit given by the Boys’ and Girls’ Square Deal Club at the great Health and Education Exposition given under the auspices of the Chicago Department of Education and Department of Health at the Coliseum, Chicago, last month.

“The exposition continued for eight days, and thousands of people of all classes surged through the aisles reviewing and studying the many exhibits. The members of the Chicago Council of Medical Women were highly pleased and freely commended the methods used in visualizing well proven scientific facts as regards the poisonous content of cigarette fumes and its reaction on the human system…

“Side Lights:

“Perfumed Cigarettes a Lure

“One boy when asked why he began to smoke, said:

“’I was handed a perfumed cigarette and it tasted so sweet and good that I have been smoking ever since and I can’t quit smoking.’

“When this lad saw the liquid poison in cigarette smoke he seemed worried, and while the speaker did all she could to teach him how to break the habit, he returned to the booth repeatedly not feeling confident that he could ever stop smoking. This truly pitiful case emphasizes then importance of our work of prevention.”

“DENTIST BLAMES SMOKING FOR WOMEN’S TRENCH MOUTH”

“New York, May 13. – (Special)

“’Many women who smoke are becoming victims of Trench Mouth,’ Dr. Harold J. Leonard, Professor of Dentistry, Columbia University, said today. He spoke at the second annual meeting of the State Dental Society of New York.

“’Trench Mouth was practically unknown as an ailment so far as women are concerned before the World War, but today, that is common among women who indulge in cigarette smoking.’”

THE CIGARETTE AS A PHYSICIAN SEES IT (49 pages)

Book by David H. Kress, MD (1862-1956)
Neurologist, Washington Sanitarium and Hospital, Washington, DC
Seventh-day Adventist Publication, 100 pages
Pacific Press Publishing Association, Mountain View, California
1931

“A Physician’s Advice to Boys”

Essay by Daniel H. Kress, MD

“LOOK before you jump, boys. Before smoking the first cigarette, ascertain where it may land you. · I know where it has landed some boys. I have seen the prospects of many a boy– ruined by the cigarette. Promising boys by the hundred have made a failure of life because they took the first smoke. The cigarette habit, when taken up by boys before the brain is fully developed, brings about a degeneracy of the brain cells, and may produce a moral insanity. It tends to develop criminal tendencies.

“Ninety-eight per cent of the. inmates of the Whittier Reform School in California are cigarette smokers. All cigarette smokers do not become criminals, but practically all youthful criminals are cigarette smokers. These facts are known to judges of all our juvenile courts. It is practically certain that the boy who lands in the police court smokes; and it is equally certain that many a boy would never have been there if he had not smoked…”

From The Youth’s Instructor ANTI-TOBACCO JOURNAL
Circa 1920

“What Makes the Difference?”

Essay by Daniel H. Kress, MD

“There are good men and great men who smoke. Even these good men and great men would have been better men and greater men had they never smoked. The boy who begins to smoke cigarettes at the age of twelve or fourteen years will in all probability be neither a good man nor a great man. He will remain in obscurity and live but only half his allotted span of life.”

The Nicotine Reporter (8 pages)

Volume 2, Number 4
Published by The White Cross of America Educational League
Peabody, Kansas
December 1941

“Effects of Tobacco Upon the Brain and Nerves”
By JOHN HARVEY KELLOGG, M. D., L. L. D., F. A. C. S.
From his book “TOBACCOISM”
Tobacco a Possible Cause of Insanity…
Tobacco Epilepsy…
Tobacco Neurasthenia…
Tobacco Headache…
Smoker’s Euphoria…
Tobacco Lessens Efficiency…
Tobacco Blindness…
Tobacco Deafness…

(Curator’s note: A physician, Kellogg [1852-1943] was the director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan, founded by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He promoted vegetarianism and abstention from tobacco, alcohol, and sex. He also became an ardent eugenicist and segregationist. Kellogg’s brother, Will Keith Kellogg invented corn flakes.)

The Nicotine Reporter (8 pages)

Volume 2, Number 8
Published by The White Cross of America Educational League
Peabody, Kansas
July 1942

“Tobacco’s Effect on Character”
By Daniel H. Kress, M. D. From his book The Cigarette As a Physician Sees It

“…John D. Quackenbos, M. D., of Columbia University, has said that ‘the gravest of all the evils resulting from cigarette addiction is the lessening or complete loss of moral sensibility, with a conspicuous tendency to falsehood and theft. The moral propensities are eventually destroyed be- cause of the destruction of those elements of the brain through which moral force is expressed. The victim degenerates into a sallow, unmanly, irresponsible incompetent, in splendid fettle for the penitentiary or the asylum’…

“This high-power bomb was thrown at the cigarette by the late Hudson Maxim, the inventor of high explosives: ‘If all boys could be made to know that with every breath of cigarette smoke they inhale imbecility and exhale manhood; that the cigarette is a maker of invalids, criminals, and fools, but not men, it ought to deter them some.’

“Thus we see that the most serious charge against the cigarette is its power of ruining character. Bad as it is to injure physically, yet a hundredfold more culpable is it to break down the morals. And who is there that dares to say that the widespread moral delinquency and crime that is ravaging our civilization today has not been in some measure at least worsened by the almost universal use of the cigarette?”

“ON EISENHOWER EXPRESSWAY — In downtown Chicago on the Eisenhower Expressway is this sign promoting Hinsdale Sanitarium and Hospital’s Five-Day Plan to Stop Smoking. The space was donated for the month of February by the Willett Companies. The sign was designed by Richard Delcarson of Hinsdale, a graduate of the Five-Day Plan. An original, the sign is the only one of its kind. A 33rd session of the Five-Day Plan is scheduled to be held at the Chicago Sheraton Hotel April 13-17 in connection with the ‘International Five-Day Plan’ Congress. Forty thousand , brochures inviting participation in the plan were sent at the request of Mayor Daley’s office for distribution to the city employees of Chicago.”

Press photograph,
Newspaper Division, Field Enterprises, Inc.
February 1969

(Hinsdale Hospital and Sanitarium is affiliated with the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.)

The Five-Day Plan to Stop Smoking, a group-based educational program held in five 2-hour sessions over five days. (52 pages)

By E. J. Folkenberg and J. Wayne McFarland, MD
Published by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists
8th printing
1962

Your Five-Day Plan
*FIRST DAY (20 pages)
*SECOND DAY (8 pages)
*THIRD DAY (8 pages)
*FOURTH DAY (6 pages)

Excerpt of the appearance by Pastor Elman J. Folkenberg on the television game show, “What’s My Line,” in 1962

Folkenberg (1920-1986) co-authored, with J. Wayne McFarland, MD (1913-2011), The Five-Day Plan to Stop Smoking, a group-based educational program held in five 2-hour sessions over five days. Its focus was on addressing symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. Likened to Alcoholics Anonymous, the program utilized a buddy system. Folkenberg and McFarland developed their program in South Lancaster, Massachusetts in 1960. Their book was published by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Washington, DC.

If you smoke – here’s what your doctor may see.

A pathologist’s view of the effects of smoking on the human body. (8 pages)

C.L. Dole, MD, pathologist, Hinsdale Sanitarium and Hospital, Hinsdale, Illionois

Illustrated pamphlet by Narcotics Education, Inc.
Published by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Washington, DC.

1977

Your Heart: What Smoking May Do (8 pages)

Illustrated pamphlet by Narcotics Education, Inc.

Published by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Washington, DC.

Circa 1977

Starving for Air: What Emphysema Does to Your Lungs (8 pages)

Illustrated pamphlet by Narcotics Education, Inc.

Published by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Washington, DC.

Circa 1977

When and Why the Anti-Smoking Movement Began

Curated by Alan Blum, MD

Professor and Endowed Chair in Family Medicine
Director, Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society
College of Community Health Sciences
The University of Alabama School of Medicine, Tuscaloosa

Designed by Bryce Callahan

Undergraduate student majoring in computer engineering
Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society
College of Community Health Sciences
The University of Alabama School of Medicine, Tuscaloosa

ALL ITEMS IN THE EXHIBITION ARE FROM THE CENTER’S COLLECTION UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED.

When and Why the Anti-Smoking Movement Began

Introduction

When and Why the Anti-Smoking Movement Began

Curated by Alan Blum, MD

Designed by Bryce Callahan

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