The Center for the Study of Tobacco in Society is ready for the 2024 Election. Check out their new exhibit: A Vote for Cancer: Tobacco Advertising and Presidential Elections and read an interview with the Center’s founder, Dr. Alan Blum, in conversation with Jack Coulehan.

Tobacco was America’s first cash crop and a mainstay of the US economy for 300 years. So it’s no surprise that manufacturers of cigars, chewing tobacco, and cigarettes have had a presence in presidential and other electoral campaigns since the mid-19th century.

The first Presidential campaign buttons appeared in 1896 – promoting Republican William McKinley and Democrat William Jennings Bryan — and were given away by Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company to promote its Sweet Caporals cigarettes. By the mid-1900s, cigarette advertisers would distribute whimsical presidential campaign buttons featuring advertising icons such as Philip Morris’s bellhop Little Johnny and Brown and Williamson’s Willie the Penguin. The button gimmick culminated in RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company’s nationwide “Vote for Joe” advertising campaign in 1992 for its cartoon character Joe Camel.

Toward the close of the 20th century, the combination of restrictions on cigarette advertising and the approval of political action committees by Congress enabled cigarette makers to donate directly to Presidential candidates and lessened the need for cigarette product advertising.

Alan Blum, MD
Introduction to A Vote for Cancer: Tobacco Advertising and Presidential Elections

Interview with Alan Blum

Jack Coulehan Oct 24, 2024

The battle against smoking evolved from awareness campaigns to challenging a profit-driven industry, using humor, irony, and persistent activism to drive cultural change.