The Smoking Suffragettes with their Torches of Freedom

In the early 1900’s Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud, established America’s first office for Public Relations successfully promoting such artists as Enrico Caruso. Hearing of his success in applying psychoanalytical ideas about the subconscious to manipulate the masses, the American Tobacco Company employed Bernays to break the taboo on women smoking in the hope of increasing sales. Bernays did this by stage-managing a PR event in which a group of debutantes withdrew cigarettes from their stockings, which they ignited and smoked in the 1929 Easter Parade in New York City. He stood by ready to tell the media that these women were suffragettes smoking their “torches of freedom”.

To find out more watch 'The Century of Self' (Adam Curtis, 2002) Part 1 and Part 2

'The Smoking Suffragettes' is re-enacted to 'La donna è mobile' sung by Enrico Caruso (from Verdi's 'Rigaletto'), the lyrics of which are below:

Original Italian

La donna è mobile
Qual piuma al vento,
Muta d'accento — e di pensiero.
Sempre un amabile,
Leggiadro viso,
In pianto o in riso, — è menzognero.

È sempre misero
Chi a lei s'affida,
Chi le confida — mal cauto il core!
Pur mai non sentesi
Felice appieno
Chi su quel seno — non liba amore!

English Translation

Woman is flighty
Like a feather in the wind,
She changes her voice — and her mind.
Always sweet,
Pretty face,
In tears or in laughter, — she is always lying.

Always miserable
Is he who trusts her,
He who confides in her — his unwary heart!
Yet one never feels
Fully happy
Who on that bosom — does not drink love!

© Copyright Lucy Panesar 2007