Life, 1929-05-24 · page 29 of 36
Life — May 24, 1929 — page 29: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **cigarette advertisement**, not satire—it's a genuine 1929 Lucky Strike marketing campaign featuring actress Helen Morgan. The ad promotes cigarettes as a diet aid and health product by a modern standard that would be shocking today. **Key claims made:** - Smoking Lucky Strikes instead of eating sweets helps women "retain a trim figure" - The toasting process makes cigarettes "less irritating" and protects the voice - 20,679 physicians endorse them as less harmful than other cigarettes - Smoking increased because cigarette manufacturing improved **Historical context:** This reflects pre-1940s attitudes when tobacco companies made explicit health claims and used celebrity endorsements. The "reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet" slogan became famous for marketing cigarettes as a weight-loss tool to women specifically—exploiting diet anxiety to expand the female smoking market. The ad is historically significant as evidence of how brazenly tobacco companies made false health claims before FDA regulations and the surgeon general's warning.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Life ‘I light a Lucky — when the ‘sweet tooth’ beckons.” “Trim appearance and personal charm go hand-in-hand. That’s why I’m so careful to avoid overweight. I do it sensibly and easily. I light a Lucky when the ‘sweet tooth’ beckons. Which makes me doubly grateful to “ Helen Morgan, the toasting process—for the toasted . Pectcoaredigea ni ay flavor soothes the hunger for sweets “Ghow Bost." and helps to keep me slender. And toasting protects my voice by removing the irritants. That’s why I can’t help lovin’—those Luckies!” HELEN MORGAN HE modern common sense way— reach for a Lucky instead of a fat- tening sweet. Everyone is doing it— men keep healthy and fit, women re- tain a trim figure. Lucky Strike, the finest tobaccos, skilfully blended,then toasted to develop a flavor which is a delightful alternative for that craving for fattening sweets. Toasting frees Lucky Strike from im- purities. 20,679 physicians recognize this when they say Luckies are less irritating than other cigarettes. That’s why folks say: “It’s good to smoke Luckies.” Authorities attribute the ———* enormous increase in Cig- arette smoking to the improvement in the process of Cigarette manufac- ture by the application of heat. It is true that during the year 1928 Lucky Strike Cigarettes showed a greater increase than all other Cigarettes combined. This confirms in no un- certain terms the public’s confidence in the superiority of Lucky Strike. No Throat Irritation-No Cough. Coast to coast radio hook-up everySaturday night through the National Broadcasting Company’s network. The Lucky Strike Dance Orchestra in “The Tunes that made Broadway, Broadway.”” © 1929, The American Tobacco Co., Manufacturers comicbooks.com