Smoking Symbolizes Liberation

A story about how Edward Bernays orchestrated a marketing campaign in the 1930s that transformed women's smoking from being illegal to a symbol of liberation.

"In the 1930s, all the men had come back from the war and they were given free cigarettes, so many men were hooked on smoking that there was no room for growth. Lucky Strike came to Bernays and said they needed more customers. At that time, it was illegal for women to smoke in public. Women didn't really want to smoke - it was considered unladylike, it was a man thing.

The big social event of the day was the Easter parade down 5th Avenue, where all the reporters would be standing on the sidelines. Bernays organized a float and called up all the socialites and debutantes - the Paris Hiltons and Kim Kardashians of the day. When they got to the corner where all the reporters were, the women pulled cigarettes from their stockings, put them in their mouths, and lit them up.

When reporters were shocked, Bernays and his crew went around saying, 'Oh no, they're not smoking, they are declaring their rights with these torches of freedom.' The newspapers ran with that headline - 'Women present torches of freedom to show they are equal to men.'

It turned smoking into a movement. To this day, if you think about smoking, you think of Audrey Hepburn in that famous scene from Breakfast at Tiffany's where she's puffing that long cigarette. Bernays completely changed the world with that campaign."