"[2] By 1893 she and her family, including her parents and fellow activist brother, Edward Page Gaston, were living in Harvey, Illinois, a Chicago suburb that prohibited the sale of alcohol through property deed restrictions.

[4] This led to much greater activity within the WCTU, including editing of publications and appearing before the Illinois General Assembly on behalf of the organization.

The group quickly went nationwide and beyond, establishing chapters around the United States and Canada, and renaming itself the Anti-Cigarette League of America, which claimed as many as 300,000 members.

Gaston's method included publication of anti-cigarette materials, lobbying legislatures as well as personally appealing to people to stay away from cigarettes.

She promoted chewing the root of the gentian plant to reduce the craving for tobacco, and would regularly offer it to smokers trying to quit the habit.

Prominent men who supported the league included Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Stanford President David Starr Jordan, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration Harvey Washington Wiley, and heavyweight boxing champion John L. Sullivan.

Many of the league's loudest cheerleaders were cigar makers, who saw the profit in frightening cigarette smokers away from their new habit and back to their traditional smokes.

Gaston's efforts to secure a smoking ban in her home state seemed to have reached a successful result in 1907, when the Illinois legislature passed a law prohibiting the manufacture and sale of cigarettes.

She only filed in the Republican primary of South Dakota and dropped out long before the election, eventually attending the convention of the Prohibition Party and supporting William Jennings Bryan.

Afterwards, Gaston's personal financial situation became very strained, but she continued to verbally assault smokers and hand out press releases and gentian root.

Press releases went out asking for contributions to the "Lucy Page Gaston Memorial Fund" to build "a monument in furthering her great principle of 'To Safeguard the health and morals of the youth, to bring about a higher calibre of individuals.'"