Vintage Cigarette Ad Exhibit Focuses on Industry Manipulation He Kindly Looking Doctor in 1920 to 1954
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
& ■ A monthly section on physical and mental well-being. April 11, 2007 SECTION 2 A LSO INSIDE C ALENDAR 30 |C LASSIFIEDS 39 Era of by D Sue Dremann Photo by Marjan Sadoughi Dr. Robert Jackler poses in front of a display of ads featuring doctors purportedly promoting cigarettes. Vintage cigarette ad exhibit focuses on industry manipulation he kindly looking doctor in 1920 to 1954. and political winds of the times. a white lab coat holds up The exhibit sheds light on The golden age of cigarette ads Ta package of Lucky Strike tobacco company tactics by show- ended in 1954, when the Federal cigarettes, gazing at them fondly. ing how orchestrated campaigns Trade Commission clamped “20,679 Physicians say ‘Luck- have worked over time. The down on tobacco companies ies are less irritating.’ Your Jacklers and Robert Proctor, a making health claims. Throat Protection against irri- Stanford professor of history and Tobacco was a known cause of tation, against cough,” the col- science, are writing a book featur- oral cancer as early as the 18th orful ad proclaims. ing many of the vintage ads. century, but the link to lung Dr. Robert Jackler, professor The exhibition has poignancy cancer wasn’t accepted until the and chair of otolaryngology at for Dr. Jackler, whose mother, early 1940s and ‘50s, Dr. Jack- Stanford, was struck by the ad’s a long-term smoker, was diag- ler said. When physician Isaac audacious misuse of the physi- nosed with lung cancer shortly Adler made the connection in cian’s iconic image of authority. after the couple began their col- 1912, he was forced to apologize. He purchased the 1940s-era image lection six months ago, he said. At the time, lung cancer disease at a Marin County flea market The exhibit’s title, “Not a was considered rare. several years ago, never realizing cough in a carload,” comes from But by the 1920s, the public it would spawn an exhibit. an Old Gold cigarette slogan, was beginning to take a closer Now, Dr. Jackler and his just one of many that billed Examples of images in the exhibit. look, forcing tobacco companies wife, artist Laurie Jackler, have cigarettes as being soothing and to shift strategies. People were amassed hundreds of the glossy healthful. bring that same vibrancy to the ping onto the finger of a woman’s calling cigarettes “cancer nails.” images, which they are sharing Although the couple initially vintage collection, she digitally outstretched hand. The caption The iconic image of the doc- with the public at an exhibi- focused on ads featuring doc- restored the aging, yellowed ads reads: “Forever and ever.” tor in a white lab coat appeared tion at Stanford’s Lane Medical tors, the exhibit also features for the exhibit. Dr. Jackler called the cam- in ads for three decades, often Library through May. celebrities, from W.C. Fields One of her favorites is of Audrey paigns “an era of complete backed by pseudoscience. The Wise, beneficent physicians, (“Even a sword swallower needs Hepburn wearing a hat brimmed hucksterism.” industry sponsored “research scientists, celebrities, sports stars, the throat-ease of Old Gold”) to with cigarettes. Another stun- As the public began to associ- institutes,” and handed out Santa Claus and even babies were Lucille Ball. Many of them died ner, a Lucky Strike ad from 1932, ate oral and lung cancers with cartons of cigarettes at medical used by cigarette companies in a from lung cancer, he said. depicts a man blowing smoke smoking, tobacco companies conventions, Dr. Jackler said. deadly, manipulative campaign The ads themselves are visual- rings — one of which becomes a embarked on campaigns that to lure new young smokers from ly stunning, Ms. Jackler said. To diamond engagement ring slip- shifted with the prevailing social See TOBACCO, page 27 April 11, 2007 ■ The Almanac ■ 25 Special Solar Power Purchase Program Upcoming Events: To atttend, please register online at www.solarcity.com/events Menlo Park, CA > Saturday 4/14 @ 3:00PM Menlo Park Council Chambers 701 Laurel Street, Menlo Park Mountain View, CA > Tuesday 4/17 @ 7:00PM Mountain View Community Center 201 South Rengstorff Avenue, Mountain View Atherton, CA > Thursday 4/19 @ 7:00PM Holbrook-Palmer Park at the Pavilion 150 Watkins Avenue, Atherton Earn up to 30% Savings on Solar Power Systems for Your Home and Business Our service includes permit processing, system design and installation, rebate administration, financing, energy efficiency consulting, and system monitoring – everything you need to go solar. Commercial and residential solar power systems design, installation, and administration 10- Year warranty included on all systems Solar Systems designed to integrate with your existing architecture Energy efficiency products and services 500+ SolarCity Power Systems installed To request a FREE site assessment, go to www.solarcity.com or call 650-638-1028 888-SOL-CITY | 888-765-2489 Copyright, 2007 SolarCity. All rights reserved. SolarCity is a registered trademark of SolarCity Corp. and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. 26 ■ The Almanac ■ April 11, 2007 HEALTH & FITNESS WOODSIDE VILLAGE PHARMACY MOVING SALE 40% OFF ALL ITEMS COSMETICS, HEALTH, BEAUTY, GIFTS, & MUCH MORE 50% OFF ALLXMASITEMSALL XMAS ITEMS PLUS FIXTURES & EQUIPMENT SALE PUBLIC NOTICE: As of 3/28/07, all prescriptions fi les, records & prescription inventory have been transferred to: Safeway Pharmacy 850 Woodside Rd., Redwood City, Telephone (650)365-3682 Woodside Village Pharmacy 3048 Woodside Road, Woodside Monday-Friday: 10-5, Saturday: 10-4 Dr. Jackler, above, says (650) 851-8881 the height of the tobacco industry’s ad campaign represents “an era of complete hucksterism.” NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING AND At right, Dr. Jackler shows NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING a pen designed to look like a cigarette that visitors to CITY OF MENLO PARK the exhibition use to write PLANNING COMMISSION in a guest opinion book. MEETING OF APRIL 23, 2007 Photos by Marjan Sadoughi NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Planning Commission of the City of Menlo Park, California, is scheduled to review the following items: TOBACCO continued from page 25 The following items require a Notice of Public Meeting or Public Hearing: At a booth near the door, doctors a huge jump in sales. Kool put Filters helped boost cigarette would be given a pack of Camels. forth a campaign calling their sales dramatically, according to Use Permit/Peter & Cindy Nathan/1044 Sonoma Avenue: “The doctor would put the brand “a breath of fresh air.” Mr. Proctor. In 1950, only 2 per- Request for a use permit to demolish an existing single-story, pack in his shirt pocket, and The makers of Kools targeted cent of smokers smoked a filter single-family residence and construct a new two-story, single-family when he left, another person African Americans in the 1950s cigarette. In 2005, that number residence on a substandard lot in regard to lot area and width in the would ask, ‘What cigarette do as part of a lifestyle that included was 99 percent, he said. But the R-1-U (Single-Family Urban) zoning district. you smoke, Doctor?’ and the cool jazz, Dr. Jackler said. The most deadly industrial setting of doctor would pull out the pack success of that campaign is still the 1960s was the filter factory. NOTICE IS HEREBY FURTHER GIVEN that said Planning of Camels. That’s how they apparent today — 68 percent of At least one brand of filter ciga- Commission will hold a public hearing on this item in the Council could claim, ‘The brand named African American smokers use rettes, the Kent micronite filter, Chambers of the City of Menlo Park, located at 701 Laurel Street, most by doctors,’ “ he said. menthol cigarettes, he added. was made of asbestos. Menlo Park, on Monday, April 23, 2007, 7:00 p.m. or as near as Often, ads contained vignettes: “Inhale to your heart’s content,” “Smokers inhaled millions of possible thereafter, at which time and place interested persons may the doctor offering soothing an ad intoned. deadly fibers per year and were appear and be heard thereon. If you challenge this item in court, assurances; making a house Women became early targets never told of the hazards,” he said. you may be limited to raising only those issues you or someone else call to an elderly grandmother; of tobacco companies when Today, 5.7 trillion cigarettes raised at the public hearing described in this notice, or in written in the lab creating antibiotics cigarettes became symbols of are smoked every year, and 13- correspondence delivered to the City of Menlo Park at, or prior to, — images designed to associate emancipation. Trading on the to 21-year-olds are still major the product with compassion women’s suffrage movement, targets of marketing campaigns, the public hearing. and good health. the American Tobacco Com- he said. The exploitation has Over time, cigarettes were pany advertised cigarettes to merely taken a different form. Documents related to these items may be inspected by the claimed to aid everything from women as “torches of freedom.” Although some medical public on weekdays between the hours of 7:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. weight loss to digestion. And in a 1912 ad, a woman pro- schools won’t take tobacco com- Monday through Thursday and 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Friday, The idea wasn’t so far-fetched. claimed, “I wish I were a man. pany money for research, others with alternate Fridays closed, at the Department of Community In the 19th century, smoking (So I could smoke.)” — including Stanford, which Development, 701 Laurel Street, Menlo Park.