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Big Tobacco in the Big Apple

How New York City Became the Heart of the Tobacco Industry
…and Anti Smoking Activism

Movie Stars and Movie Palaces

BTBA NYC

Smoking on the Screen: Film and Television (2:36)

“GOOD…they’ve got to be good!”

Chesterfield magazine advertisement featuring Fred and Adele Astaire
Delineator
October 1931

You need this throat protection too!”

Lucky Strike magazine advertisement featuring a
CBS Radio microphone
1937

“Her Throat Insured For $50,000.”

Lucky Strike magazine advertisement featuring Dolores del Rio
1938

“All Clear”

Chesterfield magazine advertisement featuring Rosalind Russell
1942

“30 Day Mildness Test?”

Camel magazine advertisement featuring Cole Porter and
Patricia Morison
1948

“My voice is my living”

Camel magazine advertisement featuring Camel Caravan host Vaughn Monroe
1950

“Smoke for Pleasure today…No Cigarette Hangover tomorrow!

Philip Morris magazine advertisement featuring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz
1952

“Now Millions Know! ONE KING SIZE tops them all for TASTE and COMFORT!”

Philip Morris advertisement featuring Lucille Ball
The Saturday Evening Post
July 11, 1953

I’ve Got a Secret

Photographic image of I’ve Got a Secret show panelists, 1953
The New York Times Magazine, page 23
January 13, 1991

“I’ve Got a Secret”

Board game by Lowell Toy Manufacturing Corporation based on a TV quiz show produced in New York City, sponsored by Winston cigarettes
1956

“Panels of Experts In Urbane Banter”

Article about the re-broadcast of 1950s game shows
The New York Times, page 55
March 21, 1999

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Explore Culture, Tobacco and NYC with the Links Below

Or use the navigation bar to visit other sections of the Exhibition

BTBA NYC
 
1934 Two Cigarettes in the Dark Gloria Grafton
Lucy color ad for Philip Morris 1953
Grease cover
precious legacy
the vatican collections
1986 Alvin Ailey Dance Theater Ad Sponsor PM 1
inside the whitney at pm

▼ Visit our Exhibitions on Art, Culture, and Tobacco with the links below ▼ 

Museum Malignancy - Tobacco Industry Sponsorship of the Arts

Museum Malignancy: Tobacco Sponsorship of the Arts, explores the ways in which Philip Morris has integrated arts sponsorship into its cigarette marketing and corporate image-burnishing. It also illustrates how art museums in particular have been willing partners in this effort.  Lastly, it highlights examples of activists and artists who have mocked or shamed leaders of museums for accepting tobacco industry sponsorship money. (Click Here)

Creativity in cigarette marketing reached its zenith in the 1980s when advertising agency owner and art collector Charles Saatchi thought of an entirely new kind of campaign to promote the brand Silk Cut. Inspired by the slashed canvases and punctured metal sculptures of artist Lucio Fontana, the visual puns for the words “silk cut” made it the best-selling cigarette brand in the UK. (Click Here)