A 19th-century Portland newspaper an early advocate for a vegetarian diet
'The Pleasure Boat" also supported abolition, women's rights and temperance. Its founder, Jeremiah Hacker, said he lived in a 'plain simple manner from necessity, choice, and principle.'
By Avery Yale Kamila
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In the decades leading up to the Civil War, Portland was home to an alternative weekly newspaper named the Pleasure Boat that championed a vegetable diet. The Pleasure Boat, first published in 1845 by reformer and missionary Jeremiah Hacker, is the earliest known vegetarian publication in Maine. The newspaper supported many causes including abolition, women’s rights and temperance – all closely tied to the era’s vegetarian movement.