Life, 1915-03-25 · page 43 of 44
Life — March 25, 1915 — page 43: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **cigarette advertisement, not satire**—it's a straightforward commercial from *Life* magazine promoting Bull Durham rolling tobacco. The image depicts well-dressed gentlemen at an upscale social gathering, establishing the product's association with wealth and sophistication. The advertisement's strategy targets aspirational consumers by claiming that rolling your own cigarettes with Bull Durham is a marker of fashionable taste and social status among "men of wealth, prominence and experienced tastes." The product itself was roll-your-own tobacco—smokers would hand-roll cigarettes using papers provided with the tobacco. The ad emphasizes this DIY aspect as desirable, offering free instruction booklets and papers. By modern standards, the advertisement's claims about tobacco being "mild" and "delightful" appear absurd and misleading. The pitch that custom-rolled cigarettes represent connoisseurship would strike contemporary readers as quaint, if not darkly humorous, given what we now know about tobacco's dangers.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“When Good Fellows Get Together” You will find fresh-rolled cigarettes of deliciously mellow “ Bull" Durham in evidence at banquets, club smokers and other social gatherings of men of wealth, prominence and experienced tastes. In the fragrant smoke of this mild, delightful tobacco formality gives way to congenial good-fellowship. If you would be fashionable, expert in the company ‘roll your own”— and your tobacco is “ Bull’ Durham. GENUINE ‘BULL DURHAM SMOKING TOBACCO To millions of experienced smokers, there is no other tobacco fragrance comparable to the wonderful, unique, mellow-sweet flavor of “ Bull"’ Durham—no other Ask for FREE package of 4 ree “papers” with each Se sack cigarettes so fresh, tasty and satisfying as those they roll for them- selves with this golden-brown, bright Virginia-North Carolina tobacco. of connoisseurs, you Roll a “Bull” Durham cigarette today—you will experience a distinctive form of tobacco enjoyment. FREE An Illustrated Booklet, showing correct way to “ Roll Your Own” Cigarettes, and a package of cigarette papers, will both be mailed, free, to any address in U. S. on request. Address “ Bull” Durham, Durham, N. C., Room 1295. THE AMERICAN TOBACCO COMPANY