By the time the lecherous cartoon dromedary named Joe Camel appeared on U.S. billboards in 1988—he enjoyed a nine-year run as the poster boy for what we’d now recognize as toxic masculinity—the product for which he shilled had traced a long and improbable arc through the American imagination. The modern cigarette, from the outset a device for delivering addictive doses of nicotine amid a cloud of carcinogenic byproducts, was—during its heyday from the 1920s to 1960s—an iconic symbol of rebellion and prestige, at once socially transgressive and fashionable. The product seemed to move effortlessly between the poles of its wildly contradictory reputation, finding its way into the hands of public figures as various as lithe supermodels, disaffected rock stars, sharply dressed businessmen, and celebrity rebels like James Dean.

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