The Day City Hall Tried to Ban Women From Smoking

On January 21, 1908, the Board of Aldermen passed the Sullivan Ordinance, sponsored by Alderman Timothy "Little Tim" Sullivan, making it illegal for the owners of bars and restaurants to let women smoke on their premises. The law never actually banned a woman from lighting up herself, it only threatened the proprietor who let her. That distinction meant nothing to a police officer who caught Katie Mulcahey striking a match against a wall on a Manhattan street the following night. She was hauled into night court, fined five dollars for smoking in public, and locked up when she refused to pay it. Two weeks later Mayor George B. McClellan Jr. vetoed the whole ordinance, and New York's ban on women smoking was dead before most restaurants had even bothered posting a sign.