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dividends. In the years from 1925, when America first became cigarette conscious, through 1950, Luckies were Number 1 on the smoke parade 14 times. Camels took first place an even dozen times in this 26'year period. Chesterfield, the other contender among the big three, never took top money but placed second 7 times and third 19 times.
CIGARETTES as we know them came into being in 1913. In that year, R. J. Reynolds Company intro' duced its Camel, the first modern, blended cigarette. To comprise its blend Reynolds introduced burley tO' bacco, hitherto confined to pipe smok' ing, sweetened with flavoring and mixed with Turkish and yellow leaf. This product proved an' immediate success, almost pushing the reigning favorite of the day, Fatima, from the market. Liggett ii Myers, makers of Fatima, to recoup their loses, entered the cigarette sweepstakes three years later with Chesterfield. In 1917, Lucky Strikes joined the fray.
George Washington Hill, presid' ing over the fortunes of the American Tobacco Company, almost at once showed the genius which was to earn him, before his demise, the reputation as one of America's masters of advertising and certainly the greatest tobacco salesman of them all. Before Hill would permit Lucky Strikes to be marketed, he insisted upon an advertising slogan. He found it himself in the preparation of the cigarette. A part of the process is the drying, or baking, of the tobacco in ovens. All cigarettes, no matter by whom made,
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go through the same process. But to Hill, Luckies would be superior to other brands because they were "toasted." And the statement that "It's Toasted" still sells billions of this brand.
The industry, which sold about 25 billion cigarettes in 1916, moved slowly until 1925. The total in that year hit an unprecedented 82 billion. Some so-called sales experts believed this to be the peak. They failed to reckon with the rising birth-rate and increase of population, and with the fact that, gradually, women were taking to the use of these tubes of white paper wrapped around choppedup tobacco.
Hill recognized the market potentialities in the female of the species in the 1925-1930 period; and he burned to exploit the fact. The industry was aware that women were puffing away in the privacy of their boudoirs and parlors, but the reformers were also aware of the matter. Ladies who smoked would sprout heavy mustaches or would otherwise turn masculine, the reformers insisted, labeling the habit as unladylike. Finally, in 1927, Hill broke the ice with a cigarette ad that showed a lady smoking. He followed this with purchased endorsements from women who smoked and attested that smoking had not interfered with their social and artistic success, nor had it made them any less womanly. Public acceptance of the idea was general, with very little indignation, much to the chagrin of the reform element.
It is impossible today to break down the smoking public into male and fe'