This in-depth essay explores Edward Bernays’s 1929 “Torches of Freedom” campaign for Lucky Strike, a groundbreaking publicity stunt that rebranded women’s smoking as an act of feminist liberation. By orchestrating a media spectacle during the New York Easter Parade, Bernays used psychology, symbolism, and press manipulation to dismantle taboos against women smoking in public. The piece analyzes how the campaign fused Freud’s theories with PR strategies to expand the female cigarette market, and traces its long-term impact on advertising, feminism, and public health. Through historical context and cultural critique, the essay reveals how consumer marketing can hijack social movements and reshape norms.