EDWARD BERNAYS with his business partner and wife, Doris Fleischman (left). Bernays worked on behalf of the American Tobacco Company to make smoking socially acceptable for women. For one of American Tobacco’s brands, Lucky Strike, Bernays was also asked to change public attitudes toward the color green. (Women weren’t buying the brand because surveys indicated that the forest green package clashed with their wardrobes.) Bernays and Fleischman organized events such as green fashion shows and sold the idea of a new trend in green to the press. By 1934, green had become the fashion color of the season, making Lucky Strike cigarettes the perfect accessory for the female smoker. Interestingly, Bernays forbade his own wife to smoke, flushing her cigarettes down the toilet and calling smoking a nasty habit.
The New York Public Library/Art Resource, NY