Twentieth Century--The Rise of the Cigarette
1900-1940: Growing Pains
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: REGULATION: 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: REGULATION: Strong anti-cigarette activity in 43 of the 45 states. "[O]nly Wyoming and Louisiana had paid no attention to the cigarette controversy, while the other forty-three states either already had anti-cigarette laws on the books, were considering new or tougher anti-cigarette laws, or were the scenes of heavy anti- cigarette activity" (Dillow, 1981:10).
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: BRAZIL: Souza Cruz founded.
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: Connorton's Tobacco Directory lists 2,124 "cigarettes, cigarros and cheroots." (GTAT)
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: A judge sends a woman is sent to jail for 30 days for smoking in front of her children.
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: BUSINESS: ATC acquires R.A. Patterson's Lucky Strike company.
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: FEDERAL FOOD AND DRUGS ACT of 1906 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.
Definition of a drug includes medicines and preparations listed in U.S. Pharmacoepia or National Formulary.
1914 interpretation advised that tobacco be included only when used to cure, mitigate, or prevent disease. 1907: REGULATION: Teddy Roosevelt's Justice Department files anti-trust charges against American Tobacco.
1907: REGULATION: WASHINGTON passes a law making it illegal to "manufacture, sell, exchange, barter, dispose of or give away any cigarettes, cigarette paper or cigarette wrappers."
1907-01-26: REGULATION: THE TILLMAN ACT. Congress enacts law prohibiting campaign contributions by corporations to candidates for national posts. However, no restrictions were placed on the individuals who owned or managed the corporations.
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: ENGLAND: Legislation to prohibit the sales of tobacco to under 16s -- based on the belief that smoking stunts children1s growth
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: THE STATE OF TOBACCO: Per capita cigarette consumption: 94/year. Per capita cigar consumption: 77/year. (International Smoking Statistice) Because of the heavy use of the inexpensive cigarette by immigrants, New York still accounts for 25% of all cigarette sales. A New York Times editorial 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)
1910: TAXES: Federal tax revenues from tobacco products are $58 million, 13% from cigarettes.
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 in more than 250 years.
1911-08-3: PUBLISHING: LIFE MAGAZINE's cover features a diapered baby girl smoking one of her mother's cigarettes. The caption: "My Lady Nicotine."
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."
Liggett & Myers was given about 28 per cent of the cigarette market:
Piedmont
Fatima
American Beauty
Home Run
Imperiales
Coupon
King Bee
Fatima (the only 15 Turkish blend
and the cheap straight domestic brands.
P. Lorillard received 15 per cent of the nation's business:
Helmar
Egyptian Deities
Turkish Trophies
Murad
Mogul
and all straight Turkish brands
American Tobacco retained 37 per cent of the market:
Pall Mall, its expensive all-Turkish brand, named for a fashionable London street in the 18th century where "pall-mall" (a precursor to croquet) was played.
Sweet Caporal
Hassan
Mecca
R. J. Reynolds received no cigarette line but was awarded 20 per cent of the plug trade.
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: Book matches are finally perfected by Diamond Co. Now the appeal, in portability and ease of use, of cigarettes is even greater.
1912: BUSINESS: The IMPERIAL TOBACCO COMPANY OF CANADA is incorporated with the assistance of British-American Tobacco (which had been created by the joining of Imperial Tobacco and American Tobacco) to produce and market tobacco products across Canada
1912: BUSINESS: George Whelan puts his United Cigar Stores company under a holding company, Tobacco Products Corporation, and starts buying small tobacco independents.
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: MEDICINE: The first lobectomy--removal of a lobe of the lung--for lung cancer is accomplished in London by surgeon Hugh Morriston Davies. The patient dies 8 days later because the lung cavity is not drained, a procedure not followed in such cases until 1929.
1912: SINKING OF THE TITANIC Men in tuxedos are observed smoking cigarettes as they await their fate. (RK)
1912: REGULATION: TRADING WITH THE ENEMY ACT. It is under this act that present-day Cuban cigar smugglers would be prosecuted. It carries a maximum penalty of $250,000 and 10 years in jail.
1912: The UNITED STATES MARINE HOSPITAL SERVICE becomes the PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE.
1912: BUSINESS: ENGLAND: Walter Molins and his son, Desmond form MOLINS MACHINE CO. LTD., specializing in the making of cigarette machinery.
1912: BUSINESS: PERCIVAL S. HILL becomes president of The AMERICAN TOBACCO COMPANY
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: REGULATION: Smoking banned in the Senate chamber; chewing still allowed
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."
1914: BOOKS: The Social History of Smoking, by G. L. Apperson (London)
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: There are now 3 standard brands of cigarettes on the US market: Lucky Strike, Camel and Chesterfield.
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: THE STATE OF TOBACCO: Per capita cigarette consumption: 419/year. Per capita cigar consumption: 80/year. (International Smoking Statistice)
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: TAXES: State tobacco taxation begins. Iowa becomes the first state to add its own cigarette tax (2 cents a pack) onto federal excise levy (6 cents).(RK)
1922: REGULATION: 15 states have banned the sale, manufacture, possession, advertising and/or use of cigarettes.
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: PEOPLE: 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: NEW JERSEY: A Secaucus teacher's attempt to get her job back after being fired for cigarette smoking reaches the state Supreme Court, but fails
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: PR Firm Hill and Knowlton established.
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:
RANK
BRAND
BILLIONS SOLD
1
Lucky Strike Regulars
43.2 billion
2
Camel
35.3
3
Chesterfield Regulars
26.4 billion
4
Old Gold Regulars
8.5 billion
5
Raleigh 85s
0.2 billion
Early 1930s: Bonnie & Clyde & RJR. "No doubt the most notorious devotee to Camels was Bonnie Parker who, with Clyde Barow, toured what was evidently the Reynolds factory in the early 1930s."--The RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co., Tilley, 1985
1930s: BRITAIN has highest rates of lung cancer in the world
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: SCIENCE: 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.
1933-11-25: ADVERTISING: The Journal of the American Medical Association, "after careful consideration of the extent to which cigarettes were used by physicians in practice," publishes its first advertisement for cigarettes (Chesterfield), a practice that continued for 20 years. (ASG)
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."
1933-04-17: ADVERTISING: Bellboy JOHNNY ROVENTINI first goes on the air on the Ferde Grofe Show, his distinctive voice making the famous, "Call for Philip Morris." Already famous himself as the world's smallest bellboy, after his discovery by PM, he soon became the world's first living trademark.
1934: LEGISLATION: GARRISON ACT is passed outlawing marijuana and other drugs; tobacco is not considered.
1934: ELEANOR ROOSEVELT is called the "first lady to smoke in public." (ASG)
1935-09: THE PRESS: FORTUNE magazine reports on "Alcohol and Tobacco" (two of its chief advertisers), concluding (page 98), "the sum total of our knowledge of the 'evil' of smoking does not add up to much more than a zero."
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
1936: GERMANY: German cigarette manufacturer CIGARETTEN BILDENDIENST offers coupons in cigarette packs which are redeemable for a coffee-table book on Hitler. More coupons bought "home album" pictures suitable for pasting into designated spots. Goebbels oversaw production of the book. (Fahs, Cigarette Confidential)
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 outselling Luckies and Chesterfield by about 40%. (RK)
1938: LEGISLATION: Federal FOOD, DRUG AND COSMETICS ACT supercedes 1906 Act. Definition of a "drug" includes "articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in man or other animals" and "articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals"
1938: LEGISLATION: AGRICULTURAL ADJUSTMENT ACT is passed again, this time authorizing marketing quotas.
1938: SCIENCE: 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' whom 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)
1938: BUSINESS: MARKET SHARE:
4. Philip Morris
5. Old Gold (RK)
1939: STATISTICS: Fortune magazine finds 53% of adult American males smoke; 66% of males under 40 smoke..
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: 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. (ASG cites per capita consumption for 1940 at 1,976.)
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.
Continue to Tobacoo Timeline 4
