“Torches of Freedom” was a phrase used to encourage women’s smoking during the women’s liberation movement in the United States. By the mid-1920s smoking had become commonplace in the United States and cigarette tobacco was the most popular form of tobacco consumption. It was the Roaring Twenties, the Jazz Age. It was a time of great social change. After decades upon decades of fighting women had finally gotten the vote, but they still faced discrimination elsewhere. Women had a desire to smoke, but were only allowed to smoke in the privacy of their own homes.  Public opinion and certain legislation at the time did not permit women to smoke in public, and in 1922 a woman from New York City was arrested for lighting a cigarette on the street. In 1929, Edward Bernays, the “father” of modern public relations, masterminded a campaign to persuade women to smoke and stated that the cigarettes were “torches of freedom.” As a result, enjoying cigarettes became the symbol of female independence and became a new step in the march towards equality of the sexes.