Chicago Street Bridge	Young Men's Christian Ass'n

The building in the background of the postcard on the left is The YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association). It was there that a young woman named Lucy Page Gaston took up her tireless crusade against the evils of cigarette smoking. Gaston, a spinster school teacher, was raised by her parents with a background of abolition and temperance. Maintaining that cigarettes would lead to drinking and drinking would lead to crime, Gaston used the YMCA to launch her Anti-Cigarette League in 1910. She maintained that the burning of the cigarette paper and the tobacco created a gas which would have an adverse effect on the brain.

Gaston relied on others to help her make her case. Principal William Goble attested that no one who smoked ever received a high school diploma from Elgin High School. Superintendent of Star Manufacturing Company attested that "businessmen and corporations pick boys without yellow stain on their fingers" 

Despite all of her efforts, smoking rose from less than five million cigarettes in 1910 to over 73 million by the end of The First World War.  Today, we know that cigarette smoking is one of the leading causes of lung and throat cancer.