1930s cigarette ads sold fear of weight gain and aging.

Evidence

In a typical ad, a glamorous flapper is puckering up, blowing smoke perhaps, with her eyes shut tight; the copy reads, “To keep a slender figure, no one can deny…Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.” A number of others invoke “The Shadow which pursues us all”; in these, a matronly silhouette ominously frames the profile of a lithe young woman. For good measure, Lasker added Hopkins’s coda to nearly all these ads: “It’s toasted.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 242

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Cigarettes were marketed to women as a diet aid. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 241; Cigarette advertising sold smoking as youthful freedom and women’s liberation — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1694; Tobacco companies advertised smoking as having genuine health and performance benefits — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1639

Broader Connections

• Cigarette advertising sold smoking as youthful freedom and women’s liberation #contradicts (0.85) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1694
• Tobacco companies advertised smoking as having genuine health and performance benefits #expands (0.75) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1639