By
the mid-nineteenth century, hand-rolled cigarettes had long been
popular in continental Europe and the Middle East, and were
introduced to British soldiers during the Crimean War (1853-1856).
Among women (as well as men), the Spanish were particularly noted
for the habit, and a promotional shot (c. 1850) of “Lola Montez, the
Spanish dancer” (the stage name of Irish-born Eliza Gilbert) is one
of the earliest photographs of anyone holding a cigarette.
Georges Bizet’s opera, Carmen, centers on a Spanish heroine
who works in a cigarette factory, while she smokes and seduces men
freely. First staged in New York City in 1878, it helped
reinforce the American image of cigarette smoking as exotically
foreign and sinful. The negative connection between cigarettes
and Spain, a Catholic country, probably also played on anti-Catholic
prejudice in the United State, a largely Protestant nation at the
time. In the United
States, however, cigarettes were uncommon until they began to be
mass-produced in the early 1880s. The only mention of the
product in
Harper’s Weekly
before the Civil War was in relation to the evil Italian character,
Count Fosco, in the serialization of Wilkie Collins’s novel,
Woman in White,
in 1860. Interestingly, the first (presumably) American
reference to cigarettes in the journal was to young women sneaking a
smoke behind their mothers’ backs in the humorous poem, “Cigarettes,”
in the issue of November 28, 1863. The male speaker complained
about the bad breath of female smokers because “a maiden’s lips
should be/ Fit to kiss.” That some American women had taken up
the habit was confirmed by
an advertisement 15 years later in the September 7, 1878 issue
in which the popular Vanity Fair brand offered monogrammed
cigarettes in small size “expressly for ladies.”
Tobacco cigarettes were
seldom mentioned in
Harper’s Weekly
through the 1870s (although there were numerous ads for non-tobacco
medicinal cigarettes made from a pepper plant), and thereafter, the
slight increase in attention to cigarettes in the United States
focused on the mechanics of production and condemnation of boys
smoking. In the newspaper’s pages, cigarette smoking was
presented as decidedly foreign, something that European, Arab, and
South American men (usually) and women did in fact and fiction.
An item from the “Waifs
and Strays”
column of the October 4, 1884 issue reported the revelation of a
London tobacconist who used to think his female customers were
buying cigarettes for their husbands or brothers, but then realized
the purchases were for the women themselves.
Anti-tobacco advocates in
the United States thought that more American women were also smoking
cigarettes in the 1880s and 1890s, and responded by publishing
anti-smoking tracts aimed at women. In 1885, the Woman’s
Christian Temperance Union reported that several cities had “ladies’
smoking clubs.” During those decades, increased immigration
from southern and eastern Europe, where cigarette smoking by women
at home was common, added to the numbers. But the habit was
becoming more common among native middle- and upper-class women,
despite press silence, denial, and stigmatization (largely for
reasons of morality, not health). In fact, the public image
that women who smoked cigarettes were unconventional and sexually
suggestive could be an incentive to start. Some society women
began smoking while touring Europe, mimicking the supposed
sophistication and worldliness of continental women. Others
saw cigarette smoking as a statement that they represented the
independent-minded “New Woman” of the 1890s. For anarchist
Emma Goldman, it reflected her political, social, and moral
radicalism.
An
illustration in Harper’s
Weekly
portrayed an elegant, wealthy, young woman smoking in her parlor in
the presence of a man (who also smokes) and another woman.
When published in the September 22, 1894 issue to accompany a
serialized novel, “The Master,” by Israel Zangwill, the time had
passed when the scene would have been considered shocking to many.
(It is questionable, though, whether a similar picture would have
been published before the death in 1892 of editor George William
Curtis, an anti-tobacco reformer.) Importantly, the female
character was English and the setting was London. The next
year, in the May 4, 1895 issue, William Dean Howells, the writer of
the “Life
and Letters”
column, insisted that while the “New Women” in English novels smoked
cigarettes, the same was not true of her American cousins.
In reality, however, at
least one hotel in New York City during the 1890s had opened a
smoking room for women to accommodate the practice common among its
upper-crust patrons. The idea of women smoking in public,
though, was still offensive to many men and women. In 1908,
the New York City Board of Aldermen outlawed women smoking in
public, although Mayor George McClellan Jr. vetoed the ordinance.
Other communities enacted similar regulations, but social stigma
continued to be the biggest force against women taking up the habit.
Nevertheless, by the early
1910s, there were enough female smokers for small tobacco
manufacturers to target them with brands with feminine-sounding
names like Milo Violets and Rose Tips. In 1911,
Harper’s Weekly
published two cartoons indicating that the realization that American
women were smoking was becoming more widespread and publicly
acknowledged. In the January 7 issue, an illustration
presented two wealthy women asking a porter for the train’s smoking
car, to which
he casually directs them. In the June 10 issue, a cartoon
showed a little boy smoking, prompting his horrified aunt to ask
disapprovingly what his mother would think.
“She’d have a fit,” he responded, “They’re her cigarettes.”
The federal government’s report on the fiscal year 1917 concluded
that the 15% increase in tobacco sales over the previous year was
due largely to more women smoking.
After America’s entry into
World War I in 1917, two previous trends grew: the number of
women smoking and organized opposition to them. Sales of
cigarettes quadrupled in the United States between 1918 and 1928,
and it was commonly believed that women accounted for a considerable
segment of the increase. Smaller manufacturers came out with
more brands and smoking-related items (e.g., cigarette cases and
holders) marketed exclusively to women. However, as historians
Cassandra Tate and Michael Schudson point out, it was not cigarette
advertising that solely enticed women to start smoking. They
were already smoking in substantial numbers (though still a
minority) before the first ads and brands for women from major
companies appeared in the late 1920s. Instead, several causes
were responsible for the phenomenon, including milder tobacco,
greater freedom from parental supervision (particularly with more
women in colleges than ever before), and higher wages for working
women. No doubt, advertising aimed at women did make the
practice more socially acceptable, as did movies, which, for decades
beginning in the 1920s, glamorized smoking by women and men.
By 1949, about a third of American women and about half of American
men smoked cigarettes.
It was not until the 1930s
through the 1950s that medical studies were first made that
indicated scientifically the dangers of tobacco, particularly
cigarette smoking. In 1964, the U.S. Surgeon General’s Office
released a report stating that smoking caused cancer in men, and
probably did in women. Further research substantiated that
women smokers also faced a grave risk of cancer and other serious
health problems. The Surgeon General’s reports in 1980 and
2001 dealt specifically with the health risks of smoking on females.
In the 2001 report, Surgeon General David Satcher warned, “Women not
only share the same health risk as men, but are also faced with
health consequences that are unique to women, including pregnancy
complications, problems with menstrual function, and cervical
cancer.” In 1987, lung cancer (overwhelmingly attributed to
smoking) surpassed breast cancer as the leading cause of
cancer-related deaths among American women. Although the
number of adult women smokers has recently leveled off (22% of women
in 1998), the number of teenage girls smoking has increased (in
2000, 30% of female high school seniors reported smoking within the
previous month). The good news is that the 2001 study
confirmed that stopping the cigarette habit contributes to better
health. |