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?
