Camel for Thanksgiving?

I can remember holidays at my grandparents’ house. They lived in a tiny 30s era bungalow with ceilings so low I almost could touch them with my elbow while standing flat-footed. Back in those days it seemed like everyone smoked, my grandmother, my aunts, my uncles, everyone went through a pack or more throughout the course of the evening. By nine o’clock a low bank of smog filled the house and those of us who didn’t smoke would retreat to the back yard for fresh air in spite of the chilly weather. I lost my grandmother to throat cancer and my grandfather never was quite the same after she was gone.

This Camel ad from 1939 promotes smoking as an aid to digestion and, following its prescription everyone should smoke at least five cigarettes during the course of a good Thanksgiving dinner. If you imagine that a lavish dinner lasts two hours, that’d be about a pack for every eight hours or almost two packs a day. To me it sounds like Camel is offering its customers a monkey for their backs, not digestive aids.

I did some searching for the two spokespersons mentioned in this ad. Dorothy Malone was, as the ad indicates, an author and food editor, but finding any real information on her is complicated by the existence of an actress and another author with the same name.  She wrote books such as How Mama Could Cook!, Cookbook for Brides, and Cookbook for Beginners and also wrote as Prudence Penny and Elsie Barton for the New York American and Secrets Magazine respectively.

William H. Ferguson, salesman? Now, come on, who cites a salesman as a spokesperson? I mean, though I have respect for anyone working retail, I have to say there are doubts when it comes to the veracity of someone literally trying to sell you a bill of goods. I wonder if he sold Camel cigarettes?