Newsies at Skeeter's Branch. U.S. Dept. of Commerce, 1910. Source: Wikimedia As I edit my historical fiction manuscript I am noticing that almost every male character smokes tobacco. It pops up quite a lot in the story. One person is blowing smoke rings, the other is stamping out his cigarette, someone else is filling his pipe, the other is puffing away at a Cuban cigar. They smoke as much as they drink. Which is actually true, if what I read in the diaries from the time period are accurate. One in particular, written by a surgeon from New York City dated 1895-98 Notes Collected in the Adirondacks (2010) includes multiple references to smoking or, as he liked to call it, "burning tobacco". Dr. Arpad Gerster, the author of the diaries, mentions his tobacco habit quite often and with no feelings of remorse or guilt. It is all pleasure for him. After a ten mile hike in the Adirondack woods he sits down and lights up.
Our attitudes about smoking have changed quite dramatically over the past century, even over the last thirty years. My students are always amazed when I talk about my own professors who smoked during class when I attended college in New York state back in the 1980s. I had one in particular that I remember fondly, she was my political science professor and she smoked Virgina Slims. I counted once in class, she smoked five during the lecture.
She would light one up and take a deep drag from it in the middle lecturing. She would then proceed to talk without exhaling. Tiny wisps of smoke would escape from her mouth and I was mesmerized. A long piece of ash would dangle precariously at the end of the cig and we'd all wait with bated breath to see if it would fall off before she had a chance to flick it into an ashtray that sat on her podium. Needless to say, I did fairly well in that class, and enjoyed it very much. I may not be able to recite the Federalist Papers but I damn well know what they're about. I credit her panache and ability to captivate her audience for that as much as her lectures. Smoking was all part of the package.
Our attitudes about smoking have changed quite dramatically over the past century, even over the last thirty years. My students are always amazed when I talk about my own professors who smoked during class when I attended college in New York state back in the 1980s. I had one in particular that I remember fondly, she was my political science professor and she smoked Virgina Slims. I counted once in class, she smoked five during the lecture.
She would light one up and take a deep drag from it in the middle lecturing. She would then proceed to talk without exhaling. Tiny wisps of smoke would escape from her mouth and I was mesmerized. A long piece of ash would dangle precariously at the end of the cig and we'd all wait with bated breath to see if it would fall off before she had a chance to flick it into an ashtray that sat on her podium. Needless to say, I did fairly well in that class, and enjoyed it very much. I may not be able to recite the Federalist Papers but I damn well know what they're about. I credit her panache and ability to captivate her audience for that as much as her lectures. Smoking was all part of the package.
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