American Tobacco Company

Bernays "Torches of Freedom" Campaign Uses Feminism to Sell Cigarettes

| Importance: 7/10

Edward Bernays orchestrates his most famous propaganda campaign, hiring a group of young women to march in New York’s Easter Parade while smoking cigarettes and announcing to press photographers that they are lighting “torches of freedom” in a strike against male domination. The …

Edward Bernays American Tobacco Company George Washington Hill propaganda media-manipulation corporate-influence public-relations health
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Edward Bernays Publishes "Crystallizing Public Opinion" Launching Modern PR Industry

| Importance: 8/10

Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud and veteran propagandist for the Committee on Public Information during World War I, publishes “Crystallizing Public Opinion,” the first book to codify techniques for manipulating mass psychology in service of corporate and political interests. …

Edward Bernays American Tobacco Company Sigmund Freud propaganda media-manipulation corporate-influence institutional-capture public-relations
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Supreme Court Orders American Tobacco Breakup, Applying Rule of Reason to Tobacco Trust

| Importance: 9/10

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 9-0 unanimous decision applying the new “rule of reason” doctrine, ruled that the American Tobacco Company violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and ordered the tobacco trust dissolved. Founded in 1890 by James Duke, American Tobacco controlled nearly 90% of …

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward White American Tobacco Company James Duke antitrust corporate-power supreme-court monopoly rule-of-reason +1 more
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Roosevelt Justice Department Files Antitrust Suit Against American Tobacco Trust

| Importance: 8/10

On July 19, 1907, the Roosevelt administration’s Department of Justice filed a major antitrust petition against the American Tobacco Company after one of its subsidiaries was indicted for price-fixing in the Southern District of New York. The suit charged sixty-five companies and twenty-nine …

Theodore Roosevelt U.S. Department of Justice American Tobacco Company James Buchanan Duke antitrust corporate-power regulatory-enforcement progressive-era monopoly
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