Pop History Moment: Passage of the Sullivan Ordinance

History is littered with failed attempts at social engineering; just a dozen years before the Temperance movement helped the United States to make the grand-doozy of them all - Prohibition - New York City's aldermen, led by the legendary Timothy 'Big Tim' Sullivan, attempted one of their own - in this case, against smoking...

The Sullivan Ordinance, passed on this day in 1908 by Messrs. Redmond, Devine, McCann, Reardon, Walsh, Kenny, Mulcahy, Delancey, Gaynor, Schloss and Schneider of the city's Committee on Laws of the Board of Aldermen purported to protect women from the horrors of tobacco (as well as the more grievous sin of being 'unladylike'); Alderman B.W.B. Brown and his colleague Alderman Doull both dissented, citing legal reasons, namely that such a measure was unconstitutional. While the Ordinance wouldn't prohibit women from smoking, it would prevent them from smoking in public, by threatening the licenses of any establishments who served them.

The following day, one Katie Mulcahey was arrested for smoking, and was defiant before a night court judge: 'No man shall dictate to me.' She was fined $5, and when she was unable to pay, sent to jail. She is the only offender of the Sullivan Ordinance in the public record and, having paid her debt to society, fades from history...

Misplaced gallantry was to blame, as usual; the protection of women is typically a two-faced venture anyway, but even given the misogyny of the times, and the fact that efforts by women to protect themselves were generally suppressed, there must have been something greater at play. Big Tim himself died of syphilis in August 1913, and he damn sure didn't catch it from his wife, so you get some kind of an idea how he really felt about protecting women.

In the end it was Hizzoner himself, George B. McClellan Jr, who overturned the ordinance two weeks later; McClellan achieved his greatest renown when, on the following Christmas Eve, he suspended the business licenses of every movie house in the city - which then numbered more than 550 - on the grounds that motion pictures caused moral decay. Some folks, it seems, never learn...
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