Camel Cigarettes Ads

“I’d walk a mile for a Camel.” Camel cigarettes advertised this popular slogan in the early 20th century. This slogan could be identified by almost any adult during that time because of the popularity of cigarettes, especially Camels. In 1915, only after two years of existence, Camel cigarettes had captured about 12% of the cigarette market (Randall 5). Furthermore, when the United States joined World War I, Camel’s market skyrocketed even more. Camel was quick to use soldiers in their advertising campaigns saying, “You can borrow the jumper brother, but not my Camels” (Zebrowski 1). By the end of the war, they controlled over one-third of the domestic market. Camel cigarettes as well as the rest of the cigarette market impacted Americans immensely in the early 20th century. Therefore, it is important to look at the history of tobacco as well as the specific birth of the Camel brand to better understand the pop culture of cigarettes during, leading up to, and shortly following World War I.
During the early 20th century, cigarettes made up a primary source of the capital in the American economy. The state, referring to the federal government, often felt the need to step in and regulate the cigarette market. Roderick Ferguson, author of Aberrations in Black, explains how the modern world is constituted by the state and the economy. Without the state, the economy cannot exist, and without the economy, the state cannot exist. In my paper, I will use Camel cigarettes to dive deeper into the relationship between Ferguson’s amorphous universal and capital’s transgressions of this universal during the World War I era. The state held contradictory views regarding soldiers smoking and women smoking. Individual states also ...

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Works Cited
Borio, Gene, “Tobacco Timeline: The Twentieth Century 1900-1949—The Rise of the Cigarette.” Chapter 6. 1993-2003.

Ferguson, Roderick, “Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique.” Critical American Studies.

Laird, Pamela, “Consuming Smoke: Cigarettes in American Culture.” University of Colorado at Denver. Author of Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing. 1998

Randall, Vernellia, “The History of Tobacco.” University of Dayton. 1999.

Reiter, Jendi, “Citizens or Sinners? The Economic and Political Inequity of Sin Taxes on Tobacco and Alcohol Products.” Columbia Journal of Law and Social Problems. 1996.

Slade, John, “The Tobacco Epidemic: Lessons from History.” University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. 1989.

Zebrowski, Carl, “Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em.” America in WWI. October 2