The group was founded in 1899 by Lucy Page Gaston, a teacher, writer, lecturer and member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
Gaston maintained that cigarette smoking was a "dangerous new habit, particularly threatening to the young and thus likely to lead to the use of alcohol and narcotics, so prevalent in the 1890s."
Gaston's mission attracted the attention and the patronage of like-minded progressives and members of the WCTU.
By 1901 the organization claimed a membership of 300,000, with a paid staff overseeing chapters throughout the United States and Canada.
Eventually, all the states repealed their cigarette prohibition laws and associated smoking bans in most public places.