Vintage Photos of Women Smoking Pipes in the Past

   

Women with pipes? Why not?

Women pipe smokers are rare today but female smoking was very popular in the 17th and 18th centuries. Respectable women were commonly seen smoking pipes in public. Many famous paintings exist of noble women of the period drinking in the smoke from a clay pipe. The middle classes were eager to enjoy this new pastime as well. In the Elizabethan times clays were quite delicate with graceful thin bowls and long stems. The Dutch redesigned these clays by enlarging the bowl and lengthened the stem.
Dutch, French and English women all enjoyed the "Indian Weed". For centuries the favorite way of enjoying tobacco was to smoke it in clay pipes. As early as about 1575 pipes were being made in England, but by the 17th century Holland had become the dominant center for the manufacture of clay pipes. Clays were made in many other European countries at this time, as well. Such pipes were usually white, with small bowls and long stems. They were extremely fragile and did not last long. However, by the 1850s, when pipe smoking in general became associated with the working class, female smoking began to decline, at least in public. The acceptance of female smokers seemed to vary between regions at this time. It is believed that many women kept their old habits. It is more than likely it was done in secret while they outwardly treated the act as a disgrace.

In rural areas such as the Highlands of Scotland and in Ireland the women smoked without shame. Women in the Hebrides smoked well into the 1930s due to the cultural isolation just as Appalachian women in the US did. It was seen as a very crude and backwards habit by most of polite society but little changes in any society without contact with urban centers. Today a women smoking a pipe draws immediate notice and sometimes ridicule.

 
Two women with pipes, 1922

 

Vintage Photos of Women Smoking Pipes in the Past

 
Five women smoking pipes and playing cards at table

 

Vintage Photos of Women Smoking Pipes in the Past

 
Founders of a 'Women's Pipe Smokers Club', 15 April 1926
 

Vintage Photos of Women Smoking Pipes in the Past

 
Girl enjoys smoking a pipe

 

Vintage Photos of Women Smoking Pipes in the Past

 
Lady smoking a pipe when playing card

 

Vintage Photos of Women Smoking Pipes in the Past

 
Lady smoking a pipe when playing chess, ca. 1950s

 

Vintage Photos of Women Smoking Pipes in the Past

 
Parisian singer, Anny Berryer, smoking a pipe, September 1953

 

Vintage Photos of Women Smoking Pipes in the Past

Performers savor their corncob pipes in a dressing room, 1941

 

Vintage Photos of Women Smoking Pipes in the Past

Two women on a rooftop smoking pipes and drinking wine

 

Walking on the beach with pipes, ca. 1930s

 

Vintage Photos of Women Smoking Pipes in the Past

Woman wearing skirt and hat with pipe

 

Vintage Photos of Women Smoking Pipes in the Past

Women having a pipe after lunch in Wrigley Building Restaurant, Chicago, 1954

 

Vintage Photos of Women Smoking Pipes in the Past

 
women smoking pipes, 1944

 

Vintage Photos of Women Smoking Pipes in the Past

Women’s poker party, 1941

 

Vintage Photos of Women Smoking Pipes in the Past

Young girl with a pipe, ca. 1900s

 

Vintage Photos of Women Smoking Pipes in the Past

Young lady with a pipe, ca. 1930s

 

Vintage Photos of Women Smoking Pipes in the Past

Young woman smoking on an outdoor bench, ca. 1920s

 

Young women smoking their pipes

 

Vintage Photos of Women Smoking Pipes in the Past

A Geiko in costume for an Odori as a country girl, smoking a pipe and carrying a basket of flowers on her back, ca. 1920s

 

Vintage Photos of Women Smoking Pipes in the Past

A young Japanese woman with pipe, ca. 1880

 

 
Anna Karina, April 1968