Visit HarpWeek.com

Other sections found within "Young Smokers":
Easy Availability of Tobacco // Health Concerns // Tobacco Regulation
>> Coffin Nails Homepage & Introduction


The spreading anxiety over young people taking up the tobacco habit led, by 1890, to 21 states and territories banning the sale of cigarettes to minors (usually defined as under 16), with penalties for sellers averaging $20-25.  Some states legally required underage offenders to turn in their tobacco suppliers or face fines or jail time themselves.  The perceived ineffectiveness of such laws prompted the anti-tobacco movement to push for total prohibition, and between 1889 and 1907, four states banned all cigarette sales.

A Harper’s Weekly cartoon from the September 13, 1890 issue looked humorously at the ban on cigarettes sales to minors.  On a serious note, editor Carl Schurz’s commentary in the January 13, 1894 issue supported the crackdown on cigarette smoking endorsed by the Board of Education in New York City.  In particular, it was the work of reformer Charles Buckley Hubbell, who proposed that schoolboys sign pledges not to smoke until 21 years old, and of a grammar-school principal, Mr. Elgas, who identified smokers among his students and worked to break them of the habit.


Harper's Weekly References
1)  September 13, 1890, p. 719, c. 3-4
cartoon, “Cigarettes and the Law”

2)  January 13, 1894, p. 27, c. 3
editorial (Schurz), “Cigarettes in the Public Schools,” supports the Board of Education’s crack down on smoking


Sources Consulted
Tate, Cassandra, Cigarette Wars:  The Triumph of the Little White Slaver (NY:  Oxford UP, 1999)
 
 

Other sections found within "Young Smokers":
Easy Availability of Tobacco // Health Concerns // Tobacco Regulation
>> Coffin Nails Homepage & Introduction


     
 

 
     
 

 
     
 

 

Website design © 2001-2005 HarpWeek, LLC & Caesar Chaves Design
All Content © 1998-2005 HarpWeek, LLC
Please submit questions to webmaster@harpweek.com