Australian Exhibition Displays Smoking Artefacts From 1900s to Present

The Alstonville Plateau Historical Society has placed advertisements, packaging, and other smoking-related objects on view at the Crawford House Museum. The items span from 1900 to the present and document how smoking was once treated as a normal part of daily life.

Harbus, 92, of Yamba recalled that doctors once recommended cigarettes for asthma. She said her mother was told to smoke a menthol cigarette when an attack began. John Sim of the historical society said the group initially had mixed feelings about presenting the material. The members concluded the story of past practices and social attitudes needed to be shown.

Barbara Hofmann, who worked as an air hostess in the 1960s and 1970s, described preparing trays of cigarettes for first-class passengers on Trans Australian Airlines. She said passengers could smoke from shortly after take-off until landing. Hofmann added that the cabin filled with smoke and that complaints were not common.

Smoking on domestic flights was banned on December 1, 1987, with a $500 fine for violations.

The exhibition notes that the message took decades to change public behavior. The Up in Smoke exhibition remains open at the Crawford House Museum until the end of June and is smoke-free.