1929 - Tobacco

Tobacco

Public-relations pioneer Edward L. Bernays engages 10 carefully selected women, provides them with Lucky Strike cigarettes, gives them detailed instructions on how and when they are to light up, and sends them down New York's Fifth Avenue on Easter Sunday in a "Torches of Freedom" march calculated to counter objections to women smoking in public (see 1928). Newspapers across the country run front-page photographs of the event, making no mention of the fact that Bernays has been employed by the American Tobacco Co. (He has seen reports about the health hazards of cigarettes and has been trying to get his wife to stop smoking.)