Back Before Warning Labels: Vintage Cigarette Ads
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Apic/Getty Images via LIFE.com.
Doctor's Orders
Remember the days when cigarette ads were warning-free creations involving smoking doctors? Tobacco execs sure do. This week five companies filed a lawsuit against the FDA, challenging the constitutionality of new warning labels that will cover the top half of cigarette packages in 2012. The graphics include a sick baby and a man exhaling smoke through a hole in his neck. (See the labels in question.) With this in mind, LIFE.com takes a look back at the early days of cigarette ads, when the only babies involved were smiling. Here, a Camel ad from 1946.
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Will Not Stick
An ad for "Our Little Beauties" pressed cigarettes, circa 1895.
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Just Say Yes
A French ad for Benson and Hedges, 1970.
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The Gift That Keeps on Giving
A Chesterfield ad from 1938.
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At Sea
Advertising for Winston cigarettes with filter in July 1963.
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Inhale the Wisdom
The Du Maurier filter from 1952.
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Apic/Getty Images via LIFE.com.
Combat Ready
A 1943 ad that ran in McCall's magazine for Chesterfields.
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On The Job
An ad for Job cigarettes in the Belle Epoque style from France, circa 1900.
Related: See many more vintage cigarette ads on LIFE.com. There, you can also find funny classic images of people smoking and see the current warning labels in question.