What Those Funny Old Smoking Ads Really Show

 

For decades, doctors, scientists, celebrities, and cool-cat executives were all used in cigarette ads to deflect fears that smoking was dangerous. The health-claim strategy evolved into "low-tar" claims that became the subject of a Supreme Court case in October 2008. We pulled these examples from a large documentation project by the Stanford University School of Medicine; many are on display at a branch of the New York Public Library through December 2008. Watch the slideshow.