Before “No Smoking” Signs Took Over America
Part of The American Time Capsule — preserving the people, places, products, traditions, and everyday moments that shaped growing up in America before the digital age. This article explores the commercials, jingles, slogans, brands, and advertising campaigns that became part of everyday American life.
There was a time when you couldn’t escape cigarette smoke.
Restaurants.
Airplanes.
Movie theaters.
Bowling alleys.
Offices.
Waiting rooms.
Even your doctor’s office.
Smoking wasn’t unusual.
It was simply part of everyday American life.
You didn’t notice the smoke because it was as common as the furniture.
For younger Americans, that probably sounds unbelievable.
For those of us who grew up in the 1950s, ’60s, and early ’70s, it was just… normal.
Everybody Smoked
It seemed like everyone smoked.
My mother smoked.
My father smoked.
Friends’ parents smoked.
Teachers smoked.
Businessmen smoked.
Construction workers smoked.
Movie stars smoked.
Military personnel smoked.
If someone didn’t smoke, chances are they lived with someone who did.
Ashtrays were everywhere.
There was one on the coffee table.
Another beside Dad’s favorite chair.
One on the kitchen table.
One in every office.
One in every motel room.
Even the family car came from the factory with a built-in ashtray and cigarette lighter.
Most cars even had ashtrays built into the arm rests of their doors or back seats in two door models so passengers wouldn’t have to reach very far.
Nobody questioned it.
It was simply part of everyday life.
Smoking in the Schaefer House
Smoking was just as ordinary inside our house.
Mom smoked Pall Malls.
Dad smoked unfiltered Camels.
There were ashtrays on the coffee table, beside Dad’s chair and anywhere else somebody might decide to light up. When they filled, one of us kids would empty and clean them.
Nobody thought there was anything unusual about giving a kid an ashtray full of cigarette butts to clean.
It was just another household chore.
There was one place Mom and Dad didn’t smoke.
The dinner table.
Dinner was family time, and cigarettes waited until the meal was over.
Mom had another rule that I remember clearly. She hated seeing someone use a dinner plate as an ashtray, especially if there was still food on it.
To her, putting out a cigarette in unfinished food was disgusting.
Apparently there were standards even in a house full of smokers.
The family car was another matter.
Mom and Dad both smoked while driving, but they had developed their own ventilation system.
They’d crack the windows slightly and take turns lighting up so the moving air would pull most of the smoke outside.
At least…
we assumed most of it was going outside.
Five kids were sitting in the back breathing whatever didn’t make it through the window.
Nobody called that secondhand smoke.
Nobody worried about it.
Nobody even talked about it.
It was simply what riding in a car with parents who smoked was like.
The Morning After
Mom and Dad occasionally had friends over for parties, and the morning after provided a sight that would probably horrify people today.
We kids would come downstairs while the adults were still sleeping.
The room would be quiet.
Ashtrays would be overflowing.
Half-empty drink glasses would still be sitting around from the night before.
And sometimes…
there were cigarette butts floating in them.
Someone had apparently mistaken a drinking glass for an ashtray—or simply stopped caring by that point in the evening.
By morning, the tobacco had begun dissolving into whatever whiskey, highball or other amber-colored drink remained in the bottom.
It looked every bit as disgusting as it sounds.
Nobody was tempted to finish those drinks.
What I find remarkable today is that I don’t remember our house smelling like cigarettes.
I’m sure it did.
With two parents smoking regularly, how could it not?
But when you’re surrounded by a smell every day, eventually you stop smelling it.
Cigarette smoke wasn’t something that had entered our house.
It was simply part of what our house smelled like.
And perhaps that’s the best example of how completely normal smoking had become.
Today, I’d probably notice cigarette smoke the moment I walked through someone’s front door.
Back then…
I noticed when the ashtray needed emptying.
Television Sold More Than Cigarettes
If television sold anything during those years, it sold the image of smoking.
The Marlboro Man wasn’t just advertising cigarettes.
He was selling rugged individualism.
Camel made smoking look adventurous.
Lucky Strike looked sophisticated.
Winston made it look fun.
Salem made it seem refreshing.
Virginia Slims told women,
“You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby.”
Tareyton smokers proudly declared,
“I’d Rather Fight Than Switch.”
Those cigarette campaigns were part of a much larger advertising culture, filled with slogans, mascots, and jingles that somehow stayed in our heads for decades, something I remember in The Commercials We Never Forgot
And then there were Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble.
If Fred and Barney could light up Winstons after a hard day at the quarry…
Well…
how dangerous could cigarettes possibly be?
That’s how completely normal smoking looked on television.
Looking back today, it’s astonishing that cartoon characters once promoted cigarettes to families watching television together.
But that’s exactly how different America was.
We All Wanted to Look Cool
I have a confession.
As a kid, I wanted to look exactly like the Marlboro Man.
Tall.
Confident.
Tough.
A cowboy.
Independent.
The advertisements made smoking look like the coolest thing a man could do.
Nobody ever showed him coughing.
Nobody ever showed him short of breath.
Nobody ever showed him struggling to quit.
Advertising wasn’t selling tobacco.
It was selling an image.
And millions of us bought into it.
Behind the Garage
Like a lot of kids, my friends and I stole our first cigarettes from our parents.
They never noticed.
We sneaked behind the garage where we were sure nobody would catch us.
This was it.
The moment we were finally going to become cool.
We lit them.
Took a deep drag.
And immediately started coughing so hard we thought our lungs were coming out.
Every one of us was choking.
Eyes watering.
Trying not to look stupid in front of the others.
Finally somebody blurted out,
“Jeez… what’s so great about this?”
If becoming cool meant feeling that miserable…
You could have it.
I suspect every former smoker remembers that first cigarette.
Not because it tasted good.
Quite the opposite.
It tasted terrible.
But curiosity, peer pressure, and the desire to look grown up have convinced generations of teenagers to keep trying anyway.
Even the Doctor Smoked
One memory still makes me laugh.
My family doctor examined me while a cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth.
Every so often he’d squint because smoke drifted into his eyes while he listened to my heartbeat or checked my throat.
At the time…
Nobody thought twice about it.
Can you imagine that today?
A physician performing an examination with a lit cigarette hanging from his lips?
It sounds like something from a comedy sketch.
Back then…
It was Tuesday.
Vietnam Changed Everything
Ironically, I didn’t become a regular smoker as a teenager even though I had experimented with it off and on since I was 14 years old.
That happened later.
Vietnam.
Behind the garage, cigarettes had been about trying to look cool.
Vietnam turned them into something entirely different.
They filled the waiting.
They gave your hands something to do.
They became part of conversations with other Marines.
And somewhere along the way, without really noticing it…
I became a smoker.
Cigarettes were about twenty-five cents a pack.
They were cheap.
Readily available.
There was even a mini pack of them in C-rations, 3 very stale cigarettes that tasted awful and may have been Lucky Strikes left over from WWII!
And they became part of military life.
You smoked while waiting for helicopters.
You smoked after patrols.
We were instructed not to smoke for one hour before a patrol.
The enemy could smell it on our breath.
You smoked while talking with your buddies.
Some guys joked that the smoke even helped keep the mosquitoes away.
Whether it did or not hardly mattered.
It became a habit.
A habit that followed me home.
What started in Vietnam stayed with me for more than forty years.
Vietnam changed far more than my smoking habits, and the experience of returning to Marine life afterward is part of the story I tell in Back to the Corps
Smoke Was Everywhere
Today it’s hard to imagine asking,
“Smoking or non-smoking?”
But that question used to be routine.
Airplanes had smoking sections.
Air travel itself belonged to a very different world then, something I remember in Airports Before We Had to Take Our Shoes Off
Restaurants had smoking sections.
Those smoking sections were just another part of the restaurant culture of the time, a world I remember in Every Restaurant Had a Personality
Some movie theaters allowed smoking.
Office meetings filled with smoke.
Bars were thick with it.
If you didn’t smoke, you still breathed it.
Nobody called it secondhand smoke.
It was simply… air.
Matchbooks Were Everywhere
Every restaurant had them.
Every motel had them.
Every bar had them.
Banks.
Car dealerships.
Bowling alleys.
Funeral homes.
If a business had a front door, chances are it had a stack of free matchbooks sitting on the counter.
People collected them like souvenirs from places they’d visited.
The advertising didn’t stop with restaurants and hotels.
You could even get a high school diploma with one!
During the 1950s and 1960s, correspondence schools advertised on matchbook covers with headlines like “Earn Your High School Diploma at Home!” or “Improve Your Future!” Open the matchbook and, instead of finding another advertisement, you’d discover a mail-in coupon requesting a free information packet. Long before websites and QR codes, a tiny cardboard matchbook became a miniature sales brochure.
Looking back now, it’s amazing how much advertising America managed to squeeze onto something small enough to fit in your shirt pocket.
That was a uniquely American thing. America Finally Changed
The first big change came on January 2, 1971, when cigarette commercials disappeared from television and radio.
For decades, cigarette companies had sponsored some of America’s biggest programs.
Overnight…
Those television commercials were gone.
Print advertising continued for years, but restrictions gradually tightened. The 1998 Master Settlement Agreement eliminated billboard advertising and sharply limited tobacco marketing aimed at young people. Over time, cigarette advertising quietly disappeared from many of the magazines that had once carried full-page color spreads.
America had begun changing its mind.
Researchers learned more.
Public opinion shifted.
Smoking gradually moved from being fashionable…
To being discouraged…
To eventually becoming something many businesses prohibited entirely.
The Hardest Habit to Break
There’s an old saying.
“There’s nobody more self-righteous than a former smoker.”
I smile every time I hear it.
Because it’s probably true.
After more than forty years, I finally quit.
It wasn’t easy.
Looking back, quitting may have been one of the hardest victories of my life.
I remember what must have been a million times taking the last drag taking the last drag from a Marlboro Red—what we called a “red man” and telling myself,
“I’ve gotta quit this filthy habit.”
Then I’d put it out.
And sooner or later…
light another one.
That’s the part nonsmokers sometimes have difficulty understanding.
I knew I should quit.
I wanted to quit.
I probably decided to quit hundreds of times.
Wanting to quit and actually quitting were two very different things.
Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances many people ever encounter. For decades, tobacco companies publicly downplayed the addictive nature of cigarettes while internal evidence later showed they understood nicotine’s role in keeping customers smoking.
Looking back, I don’t blame the teenager behind the garage.
I don’t blame the young Marine in Vietnam.
We grew up in an America where cigarettes were everywhere.
Both my parents were smokers.
They were advertised everywhere.
And they were accepted almost everywhere.
After almost 40 years of smoking, I finally quit for good.
Over the years, I’d tried just about everything.
The patch.
Nicotine gum.
Promising myself that this pack would be the last one.
Nothing worked.
Then I came down with a bad case of bronchitis.
I felt so miserable that I couldn’t even look at a cigarette, much less smoke one.
And something unexpected happened.
Fifteen days passed without a cigarette.
At some point I realized…
Wait a minute.
I’ve already gone fifteen days.
This might be the best opportunity I would ever have to finally quit.
So I made the decision.
No patch.
No gum.
No cigarettes.
I went cold turkey.
The Patch Finally Worked… Sort Of
After I quit, I still went to my favorite bar.
That presented another problem.
For years, drinking and smoking had gone together for me. Sit down at the bar, order a drink…
light a cigarette.
It was almost automatic.
So naturally, when my friends noticed that I was drinking without smoking, they asked about it.
I’d tell them,
“Yeah, I finally quit. I used the patch.”
Then I’d add:
“Maybe if I ever decide to quit drinking, I’ll pour some vodka on a Band-Aid, slap it on my arm and call it the stop-drinking patch.”
It usually got a laugh.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the medical community ever followed up on my research.
Probably just as well.
Quitting wasn’t easy.
The cravings didn’t magically disappear just because I’d made it through those first fifteen days.
But this time I refused to light another one.
After decades of telling myself, “I’ve gotta quit this filthy habit,”…
I finally did.
More Than Smoke
This isn’t really a story about cigarettes.
It’s a story about how dramatically America can change.
There was a time when ashtrays sat on every table.
Just like ashtrays, countless everyday objects have quietly disappeared from American life. Every Restaurant Had a Personality remembers another world that’s largely vanished.
When every business gave away free matchbooks with its name printed on the cover.
When cigarette vending machines stood in restaurants, bowling alleys, bars, and motel lobbies.
When smoke drifted through airplanes, restaurants, offices, and living rooms without anyone giving it much thought.
That America is gone.
The smoke has cleared.
The ashtrays have disappeared.
The commercials have faded into television history.
For better or worse, an entire culture changed within a single lifetime.
Those of us who lived through it remember both worlds.
The younger generation knows only one.
That’s what makes nostalgia so fascinating.
Sometimes it reminds us not just how much we’ve changed…
But how completely we’ve changed.
🚬 YOUR TURN
Do you remember when cigarette smoke was simply part of the background of American life?
Did your parents smoke? Did your family have ashtrays scattered around the house? Do you remember people smoking in restaurants, airplanes, offices, movie theaters—or even the doctor’s office?
Maybe you remember the commercials even better.
The Marlboro Man. Winston. Tareyton. Virginia Slims. Salem.
For those of us who eventually became smokers, there’s another question:
What made you start—and what finally made you quit?
I started at 14, partly because the Marlboro Man made smoking look like something grown men did. Nearly forty years later, after patches, nicotine gum and countless promises to myself had failed, a bout of bronchitis unexpectedly gave me fifteen days without a cigarette. I realized I might never get a better chance.
So I went cold turkey—and finally quit for good.
What do you remember about America’s smoking years? And if you smoked yourself, tell us your story.
The smoke eventually cleared.
But an entire generation still remembers when it was everywhere.
📺 Continue Exploring Television, Advertising & Pop Culture
Smoking wasn’t the only part of everyday American culture that television helped make familiar. The programs, commercials, characters and shared experiences we watched together became part of how an entire generation remembered growing up.
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🎵 The TV Themes We Never Forgot
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🕰️ Return to the American Time Capsule
Browse the curated collection of stories, memories, people, places, and everyday experiences from the America we remember.
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🪖 BUNKER RULE
Remembering when something was normal isn’t the same as wishing it were normal again.
We smoked in homes, cars, restaurants, offices and airplanes. Cigarettes were advertised by cowboys, celebrities and even cartoon characters.
That’s not an endorsement.
That’s the history those of us who lived through it remember.
Sometimes the most interesting part of looking back isn’t discovering how much we’ve lost.
It’s realizing how much we’ve changed.
📌 BUNKER NOTICE
This article documents my personal memories of growing up and living during an era when cigarette smoking was woven into everyday American life.
It is not intended to promote, romanticize or encourage smoking. I smoked for nearly forty years, tried repeatedly to quit, and eventually succeeded. If anything, my own experience taught me how easily a habit that once looked harmless and sophisticated could become extraordinarily difficult to leave behind.
The advertisements, slogans, brands and smoking customs mentioned here are included because they were part of the culture of the time.
The American Time Capsule doesn’t require the past to have been better.
It only asks us to remember what it was really like.