The History of Tobacco Part III

by Gene Borio

Twentieth Century--The Rise of the Cigarette
1900-1950: Growing Pains

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• 1900: LEGISLATION: Washington, Iowa, Tennessee and North Dakota have outlawed the sale of cigarettes.
• 1900: STATISTICS: 4.4 billion cigarettes are sold this year. The anit-cigarette movement has destroyed many smaller companies. Buck Duke is selling 9 out of 10 cigarettes in the US.
• 1900: US Supreme Court uphold's Tennessee's ban on cigarette sales. One Justice, repeating a popular notion of the day, says, "there are many [cigarettes] whose tobacco has been mixed with opium or some other drug, and whose wrapper has been saturated in a solution of arsenic.".
• 1900: BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds reluctantly folds his company into Duke's Tobacco Trust
• 1901: ENGLAND: END OF AN AGE: QUEEN VICTORIA DIES. Edward VII, the tobacco-hating queen's son and successor, gathers friends together in a large drawing room at Buckingham Palace. He enters the room with a lit cigar in his hand and announces, "Gentlemen, you may smoke."
• 1901: BUSINESS: Duke fuses his Continental Tobacco and American Tobacco companies into Consolidated Tobacco.
• 1901: BUSINESS: UK: Duke's Consolidated buys the British Ogden tobacco firm, signalling a raid on the British industry.
• 1901: BUSINESS: UK: Imperial is born. The largest British tobacco companies unite to combat Duke's take-over, forming the Bristol-based Imperial Tobacco Group.
• 1902: BUSINESS: In an end to the war, Imperial and American agree to stay in their own countries, and unite to form the British American Tobacco Company (BAT) to sell both companies' brands abroad.
• 1901: 3.5 billion cigarettes smoked; 6 billion cigars sold
• 1902: Philip Morris sets up a corporation in New York to sell its British brands, including one named "Marlboro."
• 1902: BUSINESS: ENGLAND: King Albert, long a fan of Philip Morris, Ltd., appoints the Bond St. boutique royal tobacconist.(RK)
• 1902: USA: Sears, Roebuck and Co catalogue (page 441) sells "Sure Cure for the Tobacco Habit". Slogan "Tobacco to the Dogs". The product "will destroy the effects of nicotine". (LB)
• 1903-08: The August Harpers Weekly says, "A great many thoughtful and intelligent men who smoke don't know if it does them good or harm. They notice bad effects when they smoke too much. They know that having once acquired the habit, it bothers them . . . to have their allowance of tobacco cut off."
• 1904: BUSINESS: Cigarette coupons first used as "come ons" for a new chain of tobacco stores.
• 1904: BUSINESS: Duke forms the American Tobacco Co. by the merger of 2 subsidiaries, Consolidated and American & Continental. The only form of tobacco Duke does not control is cigars--the form with the most prestige.
• 1904: MEDICINE: The first laboratory synthesis of nicotine is reported
• 1904: New York CIty. A woman is arrested for smoking a cigarette in an automobile. "You can't do that on Fifth Avenue," the arresting officer says
• 1904: Kentucky tobacco farmers form a violent "protective association" to protect themselves against rapacious tactics of large manufacturers, mostly the Duke combine. They destroy tobacco factories, crops, and even murder other planters. Disbanded in 1915.
• 1905: POLITICS: Indiana legislature bribery attempt is exposed, leading to passage of total cigarette ban
• 1905: U.S. warships head to Nicaragua on behalf of William Albers, a Amaerican accused of evading tobacco taxes
• 1905: REGULATION: "Tobacco" does not appear in the US Pharmacopoeia, an official government listing of drugs. "The removal of tobacco from the Pharmacopoeia was the price that had to be paid to get the support of tobacco state legislators for the Food and Drug Act of 1906. The elimination of the word tobacco automatically removed the leaf from FDA supervision."--Smoking and Politics: Policymaking and the Federal Bureaucracy Fritschler, A. Lee. 1969, p. 37
• 1906 BUSINESS: Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company is formed
• 1906 BUSINESS: R.J. Reynolds introduces Prince Albert pipe tobacco
• 1906-06-30: Pure Food and Drug Act prohibits sale of adulterated foods and drugs, and mandates honest statement of contents on labels. Food and Drug Administration begins; originally, nicotine is on the list of drugs; after tobacco industry lobbying efforts, nicotine is removed from the list.
• 1907: REGULATION: Teddy Roosevelt's Justice Department files anti-trust charges against American Tobacco.
• 1907-01-26: REGULATION: Congress enacts law prohibiting campaign contributions by corporations to candidates for national posts.
• 1907: Business owners are refusing to hire smokers. On August 8, the New York Times writes: "Business ... is doing what all the anti-cigarette specialists could not do."
• 1908: CANADA: LEGISLATION: The Tobacco Restraint Act passed. Bans sales of cigarettes to those under 16; never enforced.
• 1908: BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds release, Prince Albert pipe tobacco, "the Joy Smoke.", catapulting Reynolds to a national market. (RK)
• 1909: 15 states have passed legislation banning the sale of cigarettes.
• 1909: SPORTS: Baseball great Honus Wagner orders American Tobacco Company take his picture off their "Sweet Caporal" cigarette packs, fearing they would lead children to smoke. The shortage makes the Honus Wagner card the most valuable of all time, worth close to $500,000.

• 1910: TAXES: Federal tax revenues from tobacco products are $58 million, 13% from cigarettes.
• 1910: THE STATE OF TOBACCO: Per capita consumption: 138/year. Because of the heavy use of the inexpensive cigarette by immigrants, New York still accounts for 25% of all cigarette sales. The New York Times editorializes praises the Non Smokers Protective League, saying anything that could be done to allay "the general and indiscriminate use of tobacco in public places, hotels, restaurants, and railroad cars, will receive the approval of everybody whose approval is worth having." (RK)
• 1911: BUSINESS: THE INDUSTRY IN 1911:

•Duke's American Tobacco Co. controls 92% of the world's tobacco business. •Leading National Brand: Fatima, (first popular brand to be sold in 20-unit packs; 15 cents) from Liggett & Myers, a Turkish/domestic blend. Most popular in Eastern urban areas. Other Turkish/domesitc competitors: Omar (ATC); Zubelda (Lorillard); Even the straight domestic brands were seasoned with a sprinkling of Turkish, like Sweet Caporals (originally made for F.S. Kinney and later for American Tobacco) •Leading Brand in Southeast: Piedmont, an all-Bright leaf brand. •Leading Brand in New Orleans: Home Run, (5 cents for 20) an all-Burley leaf brand.

• 1911: Tobacco -growing is allowed in England for the first time for more than 250 years.
• 1911-05-29: "Trustbusters" break up American Tobacco Co. US Supreme Court dissolves Duke's trust as a monopoly and in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890). The major companies to emerge are: American Tobacco Co., R.J. Reynolds, Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company (Durham, NC), Lorillard and BAT. RJ Reynolds says, "Now watch me give Buck Duke hell."
• 1911: Dr. Charles Pease states position of the NonSmokers' Protective League of America:
• 1912: BUSINESS: Newly freed Liggett & Myers introduces "Chesterfield" brand cigarettes, with the slogan: They do satisfy
• 1912: BUSINESS: George Whelan puts his United Cigar Stores company under a holding company, Tobacco Products Corporation, and starts buying small tobacco independents. They do satisfy
• 1912: USA: Reprint of report of the perfection of a nicotine oil spray. This makes it easier to apply the nicotine extract as an insecticde to plants. (LB)
• 1912: USA: The members of the Non-Smokers' Protective League received editorial ridicule in various newspapers. One newspaper states, "Smoking may be offensive to some people, but ecourages peace and morality". Pipes and cigars are easily defended, but cigarettes may be a problem. (LB)
• 1912: HEALTH: First strong connection made between lung cancer and smoking. Dr. I. Adler is the first to strongly suggest that lung cancer is related to smoking in a monograph.
• 1912: USA: Article on substitutes for tobacco, such as ground coffee, coffee bean, hemp, leaves of the tomato or potato or holly or camphor, or "the egg plant, and the colt's foot". (LB)
• 1912: USA: Article titled "How some men stop smoking"; in which they never stop for more than a few hours. The question is raised, "How can we break ourselves of it? -- not the tobacco, but the thought that we ought to stop it?" (LB)
• 1912: SINKING OF THE TITANIC Men in tuxedos are observed smoking cigarettes as they await their fate. (RK)
• 1913: American Society for the Control of Cancer is formed to inform the public about the disease. It will later become the American Cancer Society.(RK)
• 1913: BUSINESS: Birth of the "modern" cigarette: RJ Reynolds introduces Camel
• 1913-14: ADVERTISING: Prince Albert tobacco uses Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Indians in its ads.
• 1914: HEALTH: Lung cancer death rate is 0.6 per 100,000 (US Census Bureau); 371 cases reported in the US. (RK).
• 1914: OPINION: Thomas Edison writes to Henry Ford that the health danger of cigarettes actually lies in "the burning paper wrapper" which emits acrolein. Acrolein has an irreversible "violent action on the nerve centers, producing degeneration of the cells of the brain, which is quite rapid among boys. . . I employ no person who smokes."
• 1915: BUSINESS: Liggett & Myers reconstitutes Chesterfield in the Camel mode; shortens slogan to: They Satisfy
• 1915: BUSINESS: Thorne Bros. sell majority stake in Montgomery Ward to tobacco interests.
• 1915: POETRY:
Tobacco is a dirty weed. I like it.
It satisfies no normal need. I like it.
It makes you thin, it makes you lean,
It takes the hair right off your bean.
It's the worst darn stuff I've ever seen.
I like it.
--Graham Lee Hemminger, Penn State Froth, Tobacco
• c. 1915: OPINION: Release of poster with quote from biologist Davis Starr Jordan, "The boy who smokes cigarettes need not be anxious about his future, he has none" (LB)
• 1916: Henry Ford publishes anti-cigarette pamphlet titled "The Case against the Little White Slaver". (LB)
• 1916: BUSINESS: To compete with the phenomenal success of RJR's Camel, American introduces Lucky Strike, the name revived from an 1871 pipe tobacco brand that referenced the Gold Rush days. On the package, the motto: "It's Toasted!" (like all other cigarettes.) .
• 1917: BUSINESS: American Tobacco unleashes an ad campaign for Lucky Strike aimed at women: "Avoid that future shadow," warns one ad, comparing ladies' jowls.
• 1917-18: WORLD WAR I Cigarette rations determined by market share, a great boost to Camel, which had over a third of the domestic market.

•Virtually an entire generation return from the war addicted to cigarettes.

• Turkish leaf is unavailable; American tobacco farmers get up to 70 cents/pound.
• • Those opposed to sending cigarettes to the doughboys are accused of being traitors. According to General John J. Pershing:

•You ask me what we need to win this war. I answer tobacco as much as bullets. •Tobacco is as indispensable as the daily ration; we must have thousands of tons without delay.

• 1918: War Department buys the entire output of Bull Durham tobacco. Bull Durham advertises, "When our boys light up, the Huns will light out."

• 1918: Frederick J. Pack publishes his "Tobaco and Human Efficiency," the most comprehensive compilation of anti-cigarette opinion to date. (RK)
• 1919: HEALTH: Washington University medical student Alton Ochsner is summoned to observe lung cancer surgery--something, he is told, he may never see again. He doesn't see another case for 17 years. Then he sees 8 in six months--all smokers who had picked up the habit in WW I.
• 1919: Richard Joshua (R.J.) Reynolds, 68, dies.
• 1919: The 18th Admendment ratified by states. (LB)
• 1919: Evangelist Billy Sunday declares "Prohibition is won; now for tobacco". The success of alcohol prohibition suggusted to some the possibility of tobacco prohibition (LB)
• 1919: Lucy Payne Gaston's tactics are attracting lawsuits; she is asked to resign from Anti-Cigarettel League of the World.
• 1919: BUSINESS: George Whelan Tobacco Products picks up tiny Philip Morris & Company, Ltd. Inc, including PM's brands Cambridge, Oxford Blues, English Ovals, Players, and Marlboro
• 1919: BUSINESS: Manufactured cigarettes surpass smoking tobacco in poundage of tobacco consumed. (RK)
• 1919: BUSINESS: ADVERTINSING: Lorillard unsuccessfully targets women with its Helmar and Murad brands. (RK)

• 1920-06-11: Republican party leaders, meeting in the "smoke-filled room" (Suite 408-10 of Chicago's Blackstone Hotel) engineered the presidential nomination of Warren G. Harding.
• 1921: BUSINESS: RJR spends $8 million in advertising, mostly on Camel; inaugurates the "I'd Walk a Mile for a Camel" slogan. (RK)
• 1921: Iowa becomes first state to add its own cigarette tax (2 cents a pack) onto federal excise levy (6 cents).(RK)
• 1922: BUSINESS: RJR takes Industry leadership. from American for first time.(RK)
• 1922: BUSINESS: Manufactured cigarettes surpass plug in poundage of tobacco consumed to become US's highest grossing tobacco product. (RK)
• 1922: OPINION: "Is There a Cigarette War Coming?" in Atlantic magazine says, "scientific truth" has found "that the claims of those who inveigh aginst tobacco are wholy without foundation has been proved time and again by famous chemists, physicians, toxicologists, physiologists, and experts of every nation and clime." (RK)
• 1922: Lucy Payne Gaston runs for President of the U.S. against "cigarette face" Warren G. Harding, whom she asks to quit smoking. Within two years they both will be dead, he of a stroke mid-term, she of throat cancer. (There is no record of her ever having smoked.)
• 1923: BUSINESS: Camel has 45% of the US market.
• 1923: ARTS: "Confessions of Zeno" by Italo Svevo
• 1923: BUSINESS: Camel has over 40% of the US market.
• 1924: Lucy Payne Gaston dies of throat cancer.
• 1924: STATISTICS: 73 billion cigarettes sold in US
• 1924: BUSINESS: Philip Morris introduces Marlboro, a women's cigarette that is "Mild as May"
• 1924: Durham, NC: James B. Duke creates Duke University.Duke gives an endowment to Trinity College. Under provisions of the fund, Trinity becomes Duke University
• 1925: HEALTH: Lung cancer death rate is 1.7 per 100,000 (US Census Bureau)(RK).
• 1925: BUSINESS: Philip Morris' Marlboro, "Mild as May," targets "decent, respectable" women. "Has smoking any more to do with a woman's morals than has the color of her hair?" A 1927 ad reads, "Women quickly develop discerning taste. That is why Marlboros now ride in so many limousines, attend so many bridge parties, and repose in so many handbags."
• 1925: BUSINESS: Helen Hayes, Al Jolson and Amelia Earhart endorse Luckies
• 1925: BUSINESS: Both Percival Hill and Buck Duke die by end of the year; Duke was 69. George Washington Hill becomes President of American Tobacco Co. Becomes known for creating the slogans, "Reach for a Lucky" and "With men who know tobacco best, it's Luckies two to one"
• 1925: SOCIETY: Women's college Bryn Mawr lifts its ban on smoking.
• 1925: OPINION: "American Mercury" magazine: "A dispassionate review of the [scientific] findings compels the conclusion that the cigarette is tobacco in its mildest form, and that tobacco, used moderately by people in normal health, does not appreciably impair either the mental efficiency or the physical condition." (RK)
• 1926: BUSINESS: P. Lorillard introduces Old Gold cigarettes with expensive campaigns. John Held Flappers, Petty girls, comic-strip style illustrations and "Not a Cough in a Carload" helped the brand capture 7% of the market by 1930.
• 1926: BUSINESS: Lloyd (Spud) Hughes' menthol Spud Brand and recipe sold to Axton-Fisher Tobacco Co., which markets it nationally.
• 1926: BUSINESS: ADVERTISING: Liggett & Myers' Chesterfield targets women for second-hand smoke in "Blow some my way" ad.
• 1927: LEGISLATION: Kansas is the last state to drop its ban on cigarette sales.
• 1927: BUSINESS: British American Tobacco (BATCo) acquires Brown & Williamson, and introduces the 15-cent-pack Raleigh. Raleigh soon reintroduces the concept of coupons for merchandise.
• 1927: ADVERTISING: Luckies target women A sensation is created when George Washington Hill aims Lucky Strike advertising campaign at women for the first time, using testimonials from female movie stars and singers. Soon Lucky Strike has 38% of the American market. Smoking initiation rates among adolescent females triple between 1925-1935.
• 1928: HEALTH: Lombard & Doering examine 217 Mass. cancer victims, comparing age, gender, economic status, diet, smoking and drinking. Their New England Journal of Medicine report finds overall cancer rates only slightly less for nonsmokers, but finds 34 of 35 site-specific (lung, lips, cheek, jaw) cancer sufferers are heavy smokers.(RK).
• 1929: HEALTH: Statistician Frederick Hoffman in the "American Review of Tuberculosis" finds "There is no definite evidence that smoking habits are a direct contributory cause toward malignant growths in the lungs."(RK).
• 1929-Spring: ADVERTISING: Edward Bernays mounts a "freedom march" of smoking debutantes/fashion models who walk down Fifth Avenue during the Easter parade dressed as Statues of Liberty and holding aloft their cigarettes as "torches of freedom."
• 1929: BUSINESS: Whelan's Tobacco Products Corporation crashes shortly before the market; Philip Morris is picked up by Rube Ellis, who calls in Leonard McKitterick to help run it. (RK).
• 1929: BUSINESS: Philip Morris buys a factory in Richmond, Virginia, and finally begins manufacturing its own cigarettes.

• 1930: BRAND CONSUMPTION:

• 1930: HEALTH: 2,357 cases of lung cancer reported in the US. (RK) The lung cancer death rate in white males is 3.8 per 100,000.
• 1930: RESEARCH: Researchers in Cologne, Germany, made a statistical correlation between cancer and smoking.
• 1930: TAXES: Federal tax revenues from tobacco products are over $500 million, 80% from cigarettes.
• 1930: BUSINESS: The successors of the Tobacco Trust, led by RJ Reynolds, hike cigarette prices (at the beginning of the Depression), leaving a perfect opening for Philip Morris, Brown & Williamson, and other small manufacturers to counter with low-priced brands..
• 1931-06: Cigarette Price Wars begin. Cigs sold for 14 cents a pack, 2-for-27 cents in the depths of the depression. Even with cheap leaf prices and manufacturing costs, and with "Luckies" advancing, RJReynolds President S. Clay Williams ups "Camel" prices a penny a pack. Others follow suit. The major TCs are seen as greedy opportunists. Dime-a-pack discount cigs eat into the majors' market share, taking as much as 20% of the market in 1932; PM releases "Paul Jones" discount brand. In 1933, TCs lower prices. Discounts maintain 11% of the market for the rest of the 30s (RK)
• 1931: Parliament features the first commercial filter tip: a wad of cotton, soaked in caustic soda.
• 1932: BUSINESS: Zippo lighter invented by George G. Blaisdell
• 1933: LEGISLATION: The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 institutes price supports, saves tobacco farmers from ruin
• 1933: BUSINESS: B&W introduce a menthol cigarette, Kool, to compete with Axton-Fisher's Spud, the only other mentholated brand.
• 1933: BUSINESS: Philip Morris resuscitates and revitalizes its Philip Morris as a tony, but only premium-priced ("Now only 15 cents") "English Blend" brand.
• 1933: ADVERTISING: Page boy Johnny Roventini is discovered in the New Yorker hotel and soon becomes the world's first living trademark, his distinctive voice making the famous, "Call for Philip Morris."
• 1933: ADVERTISING: Chesterfield begins running ads in the New York State Journal of Medicine, with claims like, "Just as pure as the water you drink . . . and practically untouched by human hands."
• 1934: LEGISLATION: Garrison Act is passed outlawing marijuana and other drugs; tobacco is not considered.
• 1936: BUSINESS: B&W introduces Viceroy, the first serious brand to feature a filter of cellulose acetate. (RK)
• 1936: BUSINESS Viceroy intorduces a cellulose filter that it claimed removed half the particles in smoke.
• 1936: BUSINESS: RJR discontinues Red Kamel brand
• 1937: Federal Government establishes the National Cancer Institute at Bethesday, MD (RK)
• 1937: BUSINESS: 'Printers Ink' reports that R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., and Ligett & Myers Tobacco Co. each spent at least two million dollars on advertising in the first half of 1937. (LB)
• 1937: BUSINESS: By the end of the year, Camels are ouselling Luckies and Chesterfield by about 40%. (RK)
• 1938: LEGISLATION: Agricultural Adjustment Act is passed again, this time authorizing marketing quotas.
• 1938: RESEARCH: Dr. Raymond Pearl of Johns Hopkins University reports that smokers do not live as long as non-smokers.
• 1938: MEDIA: Consumer Reports rates 36 cigarette brands.

•CR notes that Philip Morris lays "great stress in their advertising upon their substitution of glycol for glycerine. The aura of science surrounding their 'proofs' that this makes a less irritating smoke, does not convince many toxicologists that they were valid. Of the many irritating combustion products in tobacco smoke, the modification of one has probably little more than a psychological ffect in reducing irritation felt by the smoker." •In blindfold tests, finds little to distinguish brands •Knocks "the obvious bias of cigarette manufacturers, as well as of the 'scientists' whm they directly or indirectly subsidize." •Rates nicotine content, finding:
•Chesterfield: 2.3 mg nicotine •Marlboro: 2.3 mg nicotine •Philip Morris: 2.2 mg nicotine •Old Gold: 2.0 mg nicotine •Camel: 1.9 mg nicotine •Lucky Strike: 1.4 mg nicotine(RK)
• 1939: HEALTH: "Tobacco Misuse and Lung Carcinoma" by Franz Hermann Muller of the University of Cologne's Pathological Institute finds extremely strong dose relationship between smoking and lung cancer.
• 1939: BUSINESS: Tobacco companies are found price-fixing.
• 1939: BUSINESS: ATC introduces "king size" Pall Mall. With Pall Mall and Lucky Strike, American will rule the 40s.
• 1939: Fortune magazine finds 53% of adult American males smoke; 66% of males under 40 smoke..
• 1939: GERMANY: Hermann Goring issues a decree forbidding the military to smoke on the streets, on marches, and on brief off duty periods.

• 1939-1945: WORLD WAR II As part of the war effort, Roosevelt makes tobacco a protected crop. General Douglas McArthur makes the corncob pipe his trademark by posing with it on dramatic occasions such as his wading ashore during the invasion and reconquest of the Philippines. Cigarettes are included in GI's C-Rations. Tobacco companies send millions of free cigs to GI's, mostly the popular brands; the home front had to make do with off-brands like Rameses or Pacayunes. Tobacco consumption is so fierce a shortage develops. By the end of the war, cigarette sales are at an all-time high.

• 1940: HEALTH: 7,121 cases of lung cancer reported in the US. (RK).
• 1940: CONSUMPTION: Adult Americans smoke 2,558 cigarettes per capita a year, nearly twice the consumption of 1930.
• 1940: MEDIA: As most tobacco-ad-laden newspapers refused to report the growing evidence of tobacco's hazards, muckraking pioneer George Seldes starts his own newsletter in which he covered tobacco. "For 10 years, we pounded on tobacco as one of the only legal poisons you could buy in America," he told R. Holhut, editor of The George Seldes Reader.
• 1940: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE BY COMPANY:

•1. RJR •2. ATC •3. Liggett & Myers •4. Brown & Williamson •5. Philip Morris (7%)

• 1940: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE BY BRAND:

•1. Camel (RJR) (24%) •2. Lucky Strike (ATC) (22.6%) •3. Chesterfield (18%) •-- Combined 10 cent brands (12%) •4. Raleigh (B&W) (5.1%) •5. Old Gold (3%) •5. Pall Mall (PM) (2%)

• 1941: MEDIA: Reader's Digest publishes "Nicotine Knockout"
• 1941: HEALTH: Dr. Michael DeBakey, in an article, cites a correlation between the increased sale of tobacco and the increasing prevalence of lung cancer
• 1942: BUSINESS: Luckies uses the dye shortage to change its package from green to white. It's slogan: "Lucky Strike green has gone to war." Ad campaign coincides with US invasion of North Africa. Sales increase 38%.
• 1942: HEALTH: British researcher L.M. Johnston successfully substituted nicotine injections for smoking Johnston discusses aspects of addiction including tolerance, craving and withdrawal symptoms. He concludes: Clearly the essence of tobacco smoking is the tobacco and not the smoking. Satisfaction can be obtained from chewing it, from snuff taking, and from the administration of nicotine. The experiment is reported in the British medical journal Lancet.
• 1942: LITIGATION: 17-year-old Rose Cipollone begins smoking Chesterfields.
• 1942: ARTS: FILM: Casablanca starring Humphrey Bogart, and Now Voyager with Bette Davis and Paul Henreid are released.
• 1942: GERMANY: The Federation of German Women launch a campaign against tobacco and alcohol abuse; restaurants and cafes are forbidden to sell cigarettes to women customers.
• 1942: ADVERTISING: Brown and Williamson claims that Kools would keep the head clear and/or give extra protection against colds.
• 1943: ADVERTISING: Philip Morris places an ad in the National Medical Journal which reads: "'Don't smoke' is advice hard for patients to swallow. May we suggest instead 'Smoking Philip Morris?' Tests showed three out of every four cases of smokers' cough cleared on changing to Philip Morris. Why not observe the results for yourself?"
• 1943-07: GERMANY: LEGISLATION: a law is passed forbidding tobacco use in public places by anyone under 18 years of age.
• 1945: GERMANY: Cigarettes are the unofficial currency. Value: 50 cents each
• 1946: A letter from a Lorillard chemist to its manufacturing committee states: "Certain scientists and medical authorities have claimed for many years that the use of tobacco contributes to cancer development in susceptible people. Just enough evidence has been presented to justify the possibility of such a presumption." (Maryland "Medicaid" Lawsuit 5/1/96)
• 1947: CULTURE: "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)," Written by Merle Travis for Tex Williams, is national hit. The lyric "Puff, Puff, Puff, And if you smoke yourself to death" is later used in Cipollone case as defense that Rose Cipollone knew cigarettes were dangerous.
• 1947: LITIGATION: Grady Carter begins smoking Lucky Strikes
• 1948: HEALTH: The Journal of the American Medical Association argues, "more can be said in behalf of smoking as a form of escape from tension than against it . . . there does not seem to be any preponderance of evidence that would indicate the abolition of the use of tobacco as a substance contrary to the public health."
• 1948: HEALTH: Lung cancer has grown 5 times faster than other cancers since 1938; behind stomach cancer, it is now the most common form of the disease.
• 1949: LEGISLATION: Agricultural Adjustment Act is passed again, this time authorizing price supports.
• 1949: STATISTICS: 44-47% of all adult Americans smoke; over 50% of men, and about 33% of women.

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Twentieth Century--The Rise of the Cigarette
1950 + : The Battle is Joined
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The Fifties
When the decade begins, 2% of cigarettes are filter tip; by 1960, 50% of cigarettes are filter tips.

• 1950: BRAND CONSUMPTION:

• 1950: MEDIA: TV pop-music series "Your Hit Parade" starts its 7-year-run; one of the first hits on TV; it is sponsored by Lucky Strike.
• 1950: ADVERTISING: Lucky Strike's "Be Happy, Go Lucky" wins TV Guide's commercial of the year. (Cheerleaders sing: "Yes, Luckies get our loudest cheers on campus and on dates. With college gals and college guys a Lucky really rates.")
• 1950: STATISTICS: American cigarette consumption is 10 cigarettes per capita, which equals over a pack a day for smokers..
• 1950: HEALTH: Three important epidemiological studies provide the first powerful links between smoking and lung cancer

•In the May 27, 1950 issue of JAMA, Morton Levin publishes first major study definitively linking smoking to lung cancer. •In the same issue, "Tobacco Smoking as a Possible Etiologic Factor in Bronchiogenic Carcinoma: A Study of 684 Proved Cases," by Ernst L. Wynder and Evarts A. Graham of the United States, found that 96.5% of lung cancer patients interviewed were moderate heavy-to-chain-smokers. •In the Sept. 30, 1950 British Medical Journal, a study by Richard Doll and Bradford Hill found that heavy smokers were fifty times as likely as nonsmokers to contract lung cancer.

• 1951: MEDIA: TV series "I Love Lucy" begins its run. It is the top-rated show for four of its first six full seasons. It is sponsored by Philip Morris.
• 1951: BUSINESS: RJR introduces its Winston filter tip brand, emphasizing taste.
• 1952: USA: Federal Trade Commission slaps Philip Morris on wrist concerning claims about Di-Gl reducing irritation. (LB)
• 1952: BUSINESS: P. Lorillard introduces Kent cigarettes, with the "Micronite" filter. At the press conference at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Lorillard boasted that the "Micronite" filter offered "the greatest health protection in cigarette history." Its secret: asbestos.
• 1952: BUSINESS: Hollingsworth & Vose gets 100% indemnity agreement from Lorillard on filters.
• 1952: ADVERTISING: Liggett & Myers widely publicizes the results of tests run by Arthur D. Little, Inc. showing that "smoking Chesterfields would have no adverse effects on the throat, sinuses or affected organs." The ads run, among other places on the nationally popular Arthur Godfiey radio and television show.

• 1952: READER'S DIGEST republishes Roy Norr's "Cancer by the Carton" article from the "Norr Newsletter about Smoking and Health" (NYC)
• 1953: Dr. Ernst L. Wynder's landmark report finds that painting cigarette tar on the backs of mice creates tumors--the first definitive biological link between smoking and cancer.
• 1953-12-15: Tobacco executives meet (for first time since price-fixing scandal of 1939) to find a way to deal with recent scientific data pointing to the health hazards of cigarettes. Participants included John Hill of Hill & Knowlton, and the following tobacco company presidents: Paul D. Hahn (ATC), O. Parker McComas (PM), Joseph F. Cullman (B&H), J. Whitney Peterson, U.S. Tobacco Co.

• 1954: AGRICULTURE: Hurricaine Hazel devastates tobacco-growing areas of North Carolina.
• 1954: LITIGATION: First tobacco liability suit, Pritchard vs. Liggett & Myers (dropped by plaintiff 12 years later).
• 1954: LITIGATION: Eva Cooper sues R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company for her husband's death from lung cancer. He had smoked Camels. The court rules there was no evidence smoking caused his cancer.
• 1954: LITIGATION: Philip Morris hires David R. Hardy to defend the company against a lawsuit brought by a Missouri smoker who had lost his larynx to cancer. This case was the beginning of PM's association with Shook, Hardy & Bacon. The case was won in 1962; the jury deliberated one hour
• 1954-01-04: BUSINESS: Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) announced in a nationwide 2-page ad, A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers
The ads were placed in 448 newspapers across the nation, reaching a circulation of 43,245,000 in 258 cities.
TIRC's first scientific director noted cancer scientist Dr. Clarence Cook Little, former head of the National Cancer Institute (soon to become the American Cancer Society). Little's life work lay in the genetic origins of cancer; he tended to disregard environmental factors.
• 1954-04: BUSINESS: TIRC releases A Scientific Perspective on the Cigarette Controversy, a booklet quoting 36 scientists questioning smoking's link to health problems.
(The booklet) was sent to 176,800 doctors, general practitioners and specialists . . . (plus) deans of medical and dental colleges . . . a press distribution of 15,000 . . . 114 key publishers and media heads . . . . days in advance, key press, network, wire services and columnist contacts were alerted by phone and in person . . . and . . . hand-delivered (with) special placement to media in Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. The story was carried by hundreds of papers and radio stations throughout the country . . . . staff-written stories (were) developed with the help of Hill & Knowlton, Inc. field offices. (Hill & Knowlton memo, May 3, 1954.)
• 1954: BUSINESS: RJR intorduces its Winston filter tips brand, emphasizing taste, not health.
• 1954: BUSINESS: Philip Morris buys Benson & Hedges, and in the bargain gets its president, Joseph Cullman III
• 1954: ADVERTISING: Life Magazine runs ads for L&M featuring Barbara Stanwyck and Rosalind Russell testimonials for the brand's new "miracle product," the "alpha cellulose" filter that is "just what the doctor ordered." These ads will figure prominently in the Cipollone trial 30 years later.
• 1954: ADVERTISING: Marlboro Cowboy created for Philip Morris by Chicago ad agency Leo Burnett. "Delivers the Goods on Flavor" ran the slogan in newspaper ads. Design of the campaign credited to John Landry of PM. At the time Marlboro had one quarter of 1% of the American market.
• 1955: Regulation: FTC publishes rules prohibiting references to the "throat, larynx, lungs, nose, or other parts of the body" or to "digestion, energy, nerves, or doctors."
• 1955: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE: American Tobacco is still #1 in US, with 33% of the market. Philip Morris is sixth.
• 1955: TV: CBS' "See It Now" airs first TV show linking cigarette smoking with lung cancer and other diseases. (For the first time on TV, Edward R. Murrow is not seen smoking. He had not quit; he felt it was "too late" to stop. Murrow died of lung cancer in 1965.)
• 1955: LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone, now 30, switches from Chesterfield to L&Ms.)
• 1956: HEALTH: Lung cancer death rate among white males is 31.0 in 100,000, resulting in 29,000 deaths.
• 1956: BUSINESS: P. Lorillard discontinues use of "Micronite" filter in its Kent cigarettes.
• 1956: BUSINESS: RJR's Salem, the first filter-tipped menthol cigarette is introduced
• 1957-07-12: Surgeon General Leroy E. Burney issues "Joint Report of Study Group on Smoking and Health," which stating that, "prolonged cigarette smoking was a causative factor in the etiology of lung cancer," the first time the Public Health Service had taken a position on the subject.
• 1957: MEDIA: Readers Digest article links smoking with lung cancer
• 1957: MEDIA: Ad agency BBDO drops Readers Digest over tobacco article.

Barry McCarthy, onetime executive at Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn, said that in the 1950's, probably 1957, he was the account supervisor on the Reader's Digest business when the Digest ran one of its many anti-cigarette articles. American Tobacco, maker of Lucky Strike, was a major client at the same time. The article enraged J. T. Ross, American's public relations man, and he got the client to insist that B.B.D.O. decide between the magazine and the tobacco company. Since the latter billed $30 million or so, which was huge by 1950's standards, and the Digest a couple of million, the agency relucantly dropped the Digest

--NYT, April 7, 1988; Advertising; RJR Flap Not the First In Cigarette Ad History By Philip H. Dougherty
• 1957: REGULATION: Pope Pius Xii suggests that the Jesuit order give up smoking.

There were only 33,000 jesuits in the world at that point, so the industry was not worried about losing this handful of smokers. They feared that the Pope or other church leaders might ask, as a magazine headline once put it, "When are Cigs a Sin?"--E. Whelan, "A Smoking Gun"

• 1957: REGULATION: Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act is amended. The manufacturer must bear the burden of demonstrating the product is safe and effective. Products previously on the market, those "generally recognized among experts as safe," or "natural constituents of food" are exempt.
• 1957-03-01: INDUSTRY RESEARCH: At the cooperative British tobacco industry Tobacco Research Council laboratory at Harrogate, an internal report by Batco refers to cancer by the code name, zephyr: "As a result of several statistical surveys, the idea has arisen that there is a causal relation between zephyr and tobacco smoking, particularly cigarette smoking,"
• 1957: HEALTH: The British Medical Research Council issues "Tobacco Smoking and Cancer of Lung," which states that "... a major part of the increase [in lung cancer] is associated with tobacco smoking, particularly in the form of cigarettes" and that "the relationship is one of direct cause and effect."
• 1958: BUSINESS SECRETS: Senior PM scientist J.E. Lincoln writes to Ross Millhiser, then-Philip Morris vice president and later vice chairman: "This compound [benzopyrene] must be removed from Marlboro and Parliament or sharply reduced. We do this not because we think it is harmful but simply because those who are in a better position to know than ourselves suspect it may be harmful." Four months later he wrote "that law and morality coincided . . . Act on the doctrine of uncertainty and get the benzpyrene (sic), etc., out of the cigarettes." Lincoln later became PM vice president of research. (AP)
• 1959-11: HEALTH: Dr Burney publishes an article in JAMA confirming the position of the Public Health Service on cigarettes' causitive relation to lung cancer.

The Sixties
By now, the distribution of free cigarettes at annual medical and public health meetings has stopped.
• 1961:06-01: POLITICS: The presidents of the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the National Tuberculosis Association, and the American Public Health Association submit a joint letter to President Kennedy, pointing out the increasing evidence of the health hazards of smoking and urging the President to establish a commission.
• 1962: UK: First Report of the British Royal College of Physicians of London: Smoking and Health,.
• 1962: STATISTICS: Per-capita consumption of cigarettes stands at 12 per day among adult Americans
• 1963:: LITIGATION: 7 tobacco liability suits are filed
• 1963:: LITIGATION: KC, MO. Local, 20-lawyer firm, Shook Hardy Bacon, wins John Ross case (filed in 1954) for Philip Morris. SHB goes on to become virtually synonymous with tobacco litigation.
• 1963:: BUSINESS: PM dispenses with tattooed sailors, et. al., and settles on the cowboy as the sole avatar of the Marlboro Man
• 1963-07-17: LITIGATION: B&W's General Counsel Addison Yeaman writes in a memo, "Moreover, nicotine is addictive. We are, then, in the business of selling nicotine, an addictive drug effective in the release of stress mechanisms." Yeaman was concerned about the upcoming Surgeon General's report, and was writing of "the so-called 'beneficial effects of nicotine': 1) enhancing effect on the pituitary-adrenal response to stress; 2) regulation of body weight."
• 1963:: INDONESIA: PT Hanjaya Mandala (HM) Sampoerna is established
• 1964-01-11: 1st Surgeon General's Report: Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service
• 1964:: LITIGATION: 17 tobacco liability suits are filed
• 1964: Tobacco industry writer suggests tobacco control advocates have psychiatric certification that they are not sufering from pyrophobia and suppressed fear of the 'big fire' or atom bomb
• 1964: BUSINESS: Marlboro Country ad campaign is launched. "Come to where the flavor is. Come to Marlboro Country." Marlboro sales begin growing at 10% a year.
• 1964-02-07: The American Medical Assn accepts a $10 million grant for tobacco research from six cigaret companies.
• 1964-02-28: The American Medical Assn supports the tobacco industry's objection to labeling cigarets as a health hazard, writes in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, "More than 90 million persons in the United States use tobacco in some form, and, of these 72 million use cigarets... the economic lives of tobacco growers, processors, and merchants are entwined in the industry; and local, state, and the federal governments are recipients of and dependent upon many millions of dollars of tax revenue."
• 1964-03-19: Rep. Frank Thompson Jr. (D-NJ) charges that the American Medical Assn has entered into a deal with tobacco-state congressmen to gain their votes against Medicare.
• 1964-09-10 to 10-15: BUSINESS: Sir Philip Rogers and Geoffrey Todd, senior officials of the British Research Council arrive in US on month-long fact-finding tour. Their reports will not be seen by the public until 10/2/96.
• 1965: RESEARCH: TIRC sets up secretive, lawyer-directed Special Projects division.
• 1965: RESEARCH:A study by the TIRC finds that said pregnant women who smoke have smaller babies and are more likely to give birth prematurely.
• 1965: RESEARCH: B&W's "Project Janus" begins issuing scientific reports on the health effects of smoking, about 30 substantial reports by 1978.
• 1965-08-01: UK: TV cigarette ads are taken off the air
• 1965: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE: American's share of the market sank from 35% in 1965 to 17.8% in 1971. By 1978 they were down to 12%.
• 1965: LEGISLATION: Congress passes the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act requiring the Surgeon General's Warnings on cigarette packs.
• 1966: Congress votes to send 600 million cigarettes to flood disaster victims in India
• 1966-01-01: Health warnings on cigarette packs begin
• 1966: BUSINESS: RJR's filter-tip Winston becomes top-selling cigarette in the US The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Public Health Service Review
• 1967: 2nd Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Public Health Service Review
• 1967: William H. Stewart's Surgeon General's Report concludes that smoking is the principal cause of lung cancer; finds evidence linking smoking to heart disease
• 1967: Federal Trade Commission releases the first tar and nicotine report.
• 1967: FCC applies TV Fairness Doctrine to cigarette ads
• 1968: 3rd Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: 1968 Supplement to the 1967 Public Health Service Review
• 1968. BUSINESS: Philip Morris introduces Virginia Slims brand, aimed at women
• 1968. LITIGATION: Rose Cipollone, now 43, switches from L&M to Virginia Slims and Parliaments.
• 1968. BUSINESS: American Tobacco begins buying into Britain's Gallaher's
• 1968. BUSINESS: 'Bravo', the attempt to create a non-tobacco based (lettuce based) cigarette, fails (World Tobacco, 1968, p1) (LB)
• 1968. Motor Sports: Colin Chapman's Team Lotus becomes the first Formula One team to accept tobacco sponsorship.
• 1969: SUPREME COURT: U.S. Supreme Court applies the Fairness Doctrine to cigarettes, giving tobacco control groups "equal time" on the air to reply to tobacco commercials
• 1969: 4th Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking: 1969 Supplement to the 1967 Public Health Service Review Confirms link between maternal smoking and low birth weight
• 1969: REGULATION: FCC issues a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to ban cigarette ads on TV and radio. Discussions, both in Congress and in private between legislators and tobacco companies, result in cigarette advertisers agreeing to stop advertising on the air in return for a delay in controls on the sale of cigarettes.
• 1969: BUSINESS: Philip Morris gains a controlling interest in the Miller Brewing Company (nee 1855), then only the 7th largest brewery.
• 1969. BUSINESS: American Tobacco drops "tobacco" from parent; American Brands, Inc. established with headquarters in Old Greenwich, CT, as parent company of American Tobacco Co.
• 1969. BUSINESS: RJ Reynolds Tobacco drops "tobacco."
• 1969. MOTOR SPORTS: WINSTON CUP racing is born when NASCAR driver Junion Johnson suggests to RJR they sponsor not just a car, but the whole show.

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This page was written and donated to History Net by Gene Borio ©1997, the Tobacco BBS 212-982-4645. WebPage: http://www.tobacco.org •Original Tobacco BBS material may be reprinted in any non-commercial venue if accompanied by this credit