Collection: Children Smoking

Children have played a huge role in tobacco advertising over the decades, and images of children fulfill multiple purposes for tobacco advertisers. Particularly in the Baby Boomer era, depictions of children with their mothers or fathers in cigarette ads reinforced the respectability of smoking as a part of normal family life, a perception often promulgated by the tobacco industry. Further, the images of youngsters tended to send a reassuring message to consumers about the healthfulness of the product, representing purity, vibrancy, and life – concepts which can be dangerous when tied to tobacco products. Finally, these depictions of children were an obvious ploy to attract females to smoking as part of the industry’s campaign to expand the pool of women smokers.