Jezebel: big tobacco

Cigarettes: Little Magic Wands For Your Lungs!

Sadie — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:30:00 EDT

According to this gallery of vintage cigarette ads, before it started being bad for you, there was just about nothing smoking couldn't fix!

You too could be distinguished like Miss Mimi Richardson...

...an elegant hostess like Mrs. Hamilton Fish, Jr...

Glamorous like Maureen O'Hara...

Fit like America's aquatic stars...

Be fun and popular...

Find romance...

...and live happily-ever-after...with your cigarette, of course.

Cigarette advertisements from the 30s, 40s & 50s [Vintage Ads]
Related: 30 Years of 'Cosmo': Sex, Drugs & Sperm-Killers

Smoke And Mirrors

Sadie — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:40:00 EDT

Big Tobacco, Feminist Hero? In the early 20th century, smoking was regarded as unladylike. In the 1920, realizing they were missing out on millions of potential customers PR expert Edward Bernays encouraged the American Tobacco Company to play on women's nascent sense of modern independence. Casting it as a political stunt, Bernays got a bunch of respectable women to publicly light up during the Easter Parade...and the smoking feminist was born! The gambit was employed again during Women's Lib, when Virginia Slims coined the iconic, "You've Come A Long Way, Baby" campaign, guaranteeing equal opportunity emphysema for all! [NY Times]

Thank You For Smoking

Sadie — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:40:00 EDT

In a revelation that would have shocked and appalled absolutely no one of the time, it seems that "secret contracts" exist proving that Old Hollywood took money from Big Tobacco to Smoke Cigarettes onscreen. "Researchers at the Tobacco Control journal reveal that many of the biggest names of Hollywood's golden age - including Clark Gable, Henry Fonda, and Lauren Bacall - took money to endorse tobacco products." Guess they figured they might as well get paid for it! [NY Daily News]