Up In Smoke

This exhibition is drawn from the Center’s collection of items related to the adverse health impact of exposure to tobacco smoke on commercial aircraft during most of the 20th century, with a focus on the decades-long battle by flight attendants for smoke-free airlines. Highlights of the collection include original advertisements and photographs depicting passengers smoking on airlines, scientific reports on the impact of exposure to secondhand smoke, newspaper and magazine articles, and editorials and political cartoons. Among the original artifacts are airline ashtrays, sample cigarette packs given to passengers, flight attendant instruction manuals, and airport duty-free shop cigarette promotions. This is an online version of the exhibition that was on view at the Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum and Library at the San Francisco International Airport from September 15, 2004 to March 15, 2005 and was at the Southern Museum of Flight in Birmingham, Alabama From October, 2010 to March, 2011. Additional items from the collection will be periodically uploaded.

The Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute (FAMRI) was formed in 2000 as the result of the settlement of a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of non-smoking flight attendants by Florida attorneys Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt in October 1991 in the Dade County Circuit Court against cigarette manufacturers. The flight attendants sought damages for diseases caused by their long-term exposure to tobacco smoke in airline cabins.

FAMRI sponsors scientific and medical research on the prevention, early detection, and treatment of health problems caused by exposure to tobacco smoke. FAMRI also educates health care providers about diseases related to second-hand smoke.