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That doesn’t mean, however, that women never smoked or didn’t smoke during that period. Many early feminists or those arguing against temperance smoked as a rebellious act. Author George Sand, a French female novelist, was noted for dressing like a man and smoking like one, partially as a way of causing controversy. However, other women’s rights activists of the time also pounced on cigarette smoking as a sign of female liberation that people could easily understand. Tobacco companies used this perception to their advantage. In an attempt to feminize smoking and make it more acceptable for women, menthol cigarettes were invented in 1924. Before these cigarettes, tobacco smoke was considered too harsh for women. Menthol cigarettes were marketed as a smoother alternative that was not so hard on women’s throats. Advertisements also were aimed at what tobacco industry executives considered to be female concerns, such as weight and diet insecurities. Cigarette advertisements from the 1920s and 1930s told consumers that smoking a cigarette was a better alternative than eating a piece of candy. “Reach for a Lucky Instead of a Sweet” was a popular slogan at the time that marketed the Lucky Strikes brand of cigarettes. The weight-loss potential of smoking was also heavily exaggerated to make women interested in them. Female cigarette use tripled during the Roaring Twenties. In 1929, the American Tobacco Company ran a series of ads that featured women marching in the Easter Sunday Parade in New York City. These women were seen smoking what the ad called “torches of freedom.” The goal of these advertisements was to further link smoking with the women’s rights movement and to make the idea of women smoking cigarettes more socially acceptable. The goal, as noted in the journal Tobacco Control , was to increase the market for cigarette customers: “Smoking had to be repositioned as not only respectable but sociable, fashionable, stylish, and feminine.”

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The Early Years of Tobacco Advertising