Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avrogant.

This day, February 6th, 1987, new rules are in effect that impact almost a million employees

in almost 7,000 buildings used by the General Services Administration.

That is to say, federally owned and operated buildings, and these new rules state that federal employees

can no longer smoke cigarettes freely, but now only in designated areas.

This could be all sorts of spaces,

we'll get into it, you know, this couch is for smoking,

this smoking room, maybe you're picturing

those little painted boxes out on the sidewalk

designated for smoking.

This is basically the moment where we start to get those for federal

workers and of course this is a moment that is part of a larger story and larger trend to curb smoking in all sorts of ways

sort of peeking in the late 1980s and 90s.

So let's talk about this moment, that larger context.

And look, we're talking about a controversial federal mandate intended to improve the health of

federal workers and those that interact

with all sorts of unintended legal and cultural ripple effects.

I can't imagine this has any resonance for stuff we're talking about today.

But here to discuss our special guest for this episode,

Sarah Mylov, professor of history

at the University of Virginia,

...