Cigarette brands from the 1950s to the 1980s

Smoking was an important part of the history of the twentieth century and a story that is worth telling. We salute the many people who worked hard to highlight the health risks of smoking from 1950s to the current era, in the face of opposition from the tobacco industry.

This series of articles shows how the tobacco industry in the USA and in the UK manipulated the market through the proliferation of different brands, different types of cigarette and different packaging such as such as the flip-top or hard box and plastic packs. The industry sowed confusion and doubt in the minds of the smoking public. They offered alternatives to the simple choice of to smoke and risk cancer or to give up. Without these strategies many more people would have chosen to stop smoking much earlier than they did and fewer would have taken up the habit.