Christmas 1917: Many of America's young men were now soldiers. The US Army had been 'over there' since summer, and the sweethearts of these doughboys celebrated Christmas at home and alone. Some, like the young woman in the Helmar ad, patiently waited under the mistletoe for her returning warrior. Change was in the wind, though, as other American women were beginning to take control of their own lives. Declaring their independence and equality with men, these emancipated females had discarded their tight corsets, bobbed their hair, gotten meaningful jobs, smoked cigarettes (on the sly), and demanded a basic right denied them. Women, criminals, lunatics, and idiots didn't have the right to vote in America. Women's suffrage was a victory won on June 4th, 1919. However, the freedom to smoke openly in public wouldn't be granted for the better part of another decade.