The following images of cigarette ads featuring majorettes and drum majorettes and are for educational purposes only. purposes. The Vintage Twirler is an education and advocacy website and seeks to educate the twirling community about the history of baton twirling in America. Click here to see more ads.
For well over a century, the tobacco industry has been selling smoke in America and abroad: marketing the very idea of smoking with the slick and calculated use of celebrity testimonials, promises of health benefits, memorable slogans, promotional sweepstakes, and more. Selling Smoke exhibits a wide array of tobacco advertising alongside anti-smoking campaign materials, drawn from the William Van Duyn collection of magazine advertisements, ephemera, articles, and pamphlets related to tobacco and cigarette-smoking. Additional anti-smoking posters from the Medical Historical Library’s collections represent national and international efforts to eliminate smoking worldwide.
Yale University Library
The Alexander Twins: Dorothy and Grace
Grace and Dorothy Alexander were drum majorettes with the American Legion’s Pannill Post Drum and Bugle Corps, Martinsville, Virginia. Eventually, they gained national fame in 1938 at an American Legion Convention in Los Angeles. In 1940, a Chesterfield Cigarettes campaign featured them magazine ads.
Twin Drum Majorettes
As a result of the Los Angeles Convention and the widespread publicity given the hundred or more star drum majorettes who strutted, high-stepped and cart-wheeled along the line of march in the Big Parade, it would seem the whole country has become drum majorette conscious. Hailed as the main attraction in the parade, one of the most widely circulated picture magazines declared the classy young ladies stole the show. And to prove it, printed action pictures of a couple of dozen taken as they led their organizations down Figueroa Street and in the Coliseum. Classy? Yes, comrade, take the Step-Keeper’s word for it if you don’t believe the pictures.
Moreover, here is the Old Dominion with an entry which gives promise of future performance in Legion and public events in Virginia and elsewhere — unique in that the two drum majorettes are twin sisters. The young ladies are Misses Grace and Dorothy Alexander who lead the Junior Drum and Bugle Corps sponsored by Pannill Post, of Martinsville, Virginia…
The American Legion Magazine [Volume 25, No. 6 (December 1938)]
Title
They Satisfy – Salute you
Description
Twin American Legion majorettes, Dorothy and Grace Alexander of Virginia, saluting
Creator
Chesterfield
Publisher
Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company
Date
1940
Source
Image from the William Van Duyn Tobacco Advertisement Collection (Ms Coll 20), Medical Historical Library, Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library, Yale University. A finding aid describing the collection is available at http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/med.ms.0020.
Contributor
This project has been funded in whole or in part with federal funds from the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, under Contract No. HHSN276201100010C with the University of Massachusetts, Worcester.
Type
Magazine Advertisement
Rights
Images may be used for purposes of research, private study, or education. The use of this image may be subject to the copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) or to site license or other rights management terms and conditions. The person using the image is liable for any infringement.
Marion Hutton, Glen Miller Band
Title
Eyes right to Chesterfield
Description
Marion Hutton, as a performer with Glenn Miller, in a military or marching band uniform including hat with plume
Creator
Chesterfield
Publisher
Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company
Date
1940
Source
Image from the William Van Duyn Tobacco Advertisement Collection (Ms Coll 20), Medical Historical Library, Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library, Yale University. A finding aid describing the collection is available at http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/med.ms.0020.
Contributor
This project has been funded in whole or in part with federal funds from the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, under Contract No. HHSN276201100010C with the University of Massachusetts, Worcester.
Type
Magazine Advertisement
Rights
Images may be used for purposes of research, private study, or education. The use of this image may be subject to the copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) or to site license or other rights management terms and conditions. The person using the image is liable for any infringement.
Patsy Garrett
Title
They Satisfy – The big parade
Description
Chesterfield Girl Patsy Garrett in Irish-themed shamrock-covered marching uniform
Creator
Chesterfield
Publisher
Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company
Date
1941
Source
Image from the William Van Duyn Tobacco Advertisement Collection (Ms Coll 20), Medical Historical Library, Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library, Yale University. A finding aid describing the collection is available at http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/med.ms.0020.
Contributor
This project has been funded in whole or in part with federal funds from the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, under Contract No. HHSN276201100010C with the University of Massachusetts, Worcester.
Type
Magazine Advertisement
Rights
Images may be used for purposes of research, private study, or education. The use of this image may be subject to the copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) or to site license or other rights management terms and conditions. The person using the image is liable for any infringement.
