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Big Tobacco in the Big Apple

How New York City Became the Heart of the Tobacco Industry
…and Anti Smoking Activism

The First 200 Years

BTBA NYC

The Deep Roots of the Tobacco Industry in New York City (6:25)

One of the most revelatory exhibitions I have ever seen at any Museum was the New York Historical Society’s two-part exhibition slavery in New York. I was shocked; I grew up in Long Island, near Rock Hall, which I learned was owned by a slaveholder who’d had a plantation in the Caribbean. I had no idea that slavery was existent in New York City until 1827. So it is with the tobacco industry in New York City and how far back it goes

One could say really that the very foundation of the industry was in New York City, and at the same time, the very Foundation of New York City’s industry was the tobacco industry. That the oldest company in continuous operation could be said to be, Lorillard now subsumed by Reynolds American Tobacco. The snuff mill established by Lorillard in the Bronx is still existing today at the Bronx Botanical Garden, and the snuff Mill remains, in my opinion, as a rather controversial entity. Because in 1980, I was invited to speak at the Bronx Botanical Gardens, and about a month before the conference, I hadn’t received my arrangements and instructions for the presentation. When I contacted the gardens, I was told that the conference had been canceled because of a lack of Interest. Well, it turns out that Lorillard, the makers of Newport cigarettes and Kent cigarettes, were still major funders through the Tisch family, which owned Lorillard by that time, of the Bronx Botanical Gardens; and although I had no direct proof. I was never able to give a straight answer from the gardens as to how they defined a lack of Interest.

The history of tobacco in New York, though, is replete with coverage. But, something that I had not appreciated in all the years that I had spent studying the issue, Harper’s Monthly regularly featured stories on tobacco, whether it be the rebellious youth of that era smoking or the art of aging and manufacturing tobacco. Pipes and later cigars were clearly a major force in New York City. By the 1870s, articles would appear in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle touting the importance of the tobacco trade. Numerous brands competed for attention, Dukes and Sweet Caporal, all advertised in the New York Press. After the Civil War, when smoking became popularized, in part due to health reasons when spitting, which one had to do with cigars and spitting tobacco was frowned upon and in many instances outlawed because of the spread of tuberculosis cigarettes, became increasingly popular, and to increase their favor among men pinups, were included on little cardboard cards in each cigarette pack. You could collect all of them, and at the same time, you wouldn’t crush your cigarette pack, so the cardboard serves two purposes.

By the late 1880s, early 1900s, you could tell though that there were some anti-smoking activities going. By the late 1880s and turn of the century, an incipient, anti-smoking movement was in force (3:05) to the point where even a Cigar Company could be created called the Health Tobacco Company to promote Health Cigars. (3:12) So, the health consequences were on the mind of those who smoked. Cigars had become the leading form of cigar use Among men. In fact, you were generally going to take up smoking if your father smoked. By the mid to late 1800, cigar-smoking. Had become the leading form of tobacco use, and New York City was, as Joe Parker points out, the center of cigar manufacturing in the United States.

(3:38) The health consequences were not hidden. However, there was even a company called the health Tobacco Company marketing Health cigars by the turn of the century, sending out letters to doctors alerting them to this wonderful new product. Cigar stores were ubiquitous throughout New York City. In the Flatiron Building, United Cigars were always in sight, according to the advertisements. By the second decade of the 20th century, one had several undercurrents; there was a strong cigar industry. There was also an element of concern about the side effects of smoking, such as an advertisement in the Police Gazette for a cure for tobacco heart. The tobacco companies really ingratiated themselves in health organizations.

World War One marked the dramatic rise in the increase of cigarette smoking as cigarettes were sent to the boys overseas. So, if you didn’t smoke before you left, or you smoked cigars by the time you return? You were smoking a popular brand of American cigarettes.

A Camel cigarettes salesman book of ethnic advertisements really says it all. Within the second decade of the 20th Century, Camel cigarettes was advertising in virtually every ethnic newspaper in New York City. Cigarettes we even advertised in medical journals. Beginning in 1927, the New York State Journal of Medicine carried cigarette advertisements. and these did not end until the 1950s. “After a Man’s Heart” would be an example of one appearing on the back cover of the New York State Journal of Medicine in 1937, and the irony of what smoking does to the heart would not be evident until about 20 years later. The young lady in that advertisement, when I published it in the New York State Journal of Medicine in a themed issue on smoking in 1983, turned out to have been 17 years old at the time. Her husband wrote to me when he saw that II had reprinted this advertisement on the cover and said that she had fibbed about her age and was selected for this cover, and she developed colon cancer in her 50s and passed away.

The public relations man, Edward Bernays, is credited with having popularized cigarettes among women in the late 1920s by hiring models to smoke Lucky Strike Green during the Easter Parade, and he was joined by the advertising mogul, Albert Lasker, who was one of the earliest advertising men to study psychology and its influence in advertising and helped greatly popularized smoking among women. Of course, the Lasker Award for Cancer Research is one of the great ironies of the 20th century, as it has now become one of the most prestigious awards in medicine.

Lorillard ad 1789 Lorillard and Tobacco book

Tobacco & Snuff of the (best) quality & flavor

Reproduction
Peter and George Lorillard
May 27, 1789

Harpers Weekly 1855 Rising Generation cartoon  Excerpt

Rising Generation

Illustration
Harper’s Weekly
1855

Harpers Weekly 1860 A Pipe of Tobacco  Excerpt

A Pipe of Tobacco

Advertisement
Duke, Sons Co.
The Sun
May 17, 1886

New York Sun 1888 Sweet Caporal ad  page

The Standard of the World…

Detail of Advertisement Sweet Caporal Cigarettes
The New York Sun
1888

New York Sun 1888 Sweet Caporal ad  detail

We made and sold … 823 Million Cigarettes

Advertisement
W. Duke, Son & Co.
The World
1802-1857

D Buchner Tobacco Card  Combined

“Telephone”

Tobacco Package Card
“Finest” or “Bravest” Chewing and Smoking Tobacco
D. Buchner & Co. New York

1905 united cigars stores all over

Isle of Pines Rothschild Size

United Cigar Stores Company
1905

Flatiron Bldg Post card 1906 United Cigar sign

The Flatiron Building

Postcard
United Cigar Stores Company
1906

Harpers Weekly 1854 In a Tobacco Factory  Excerpt

In a Tobacco Factory

Harper’s New Monthly Magazine
1854

the tobacco trade tn

The New York Tobacco Trade in Print

Evening Post, The Evening Post, New York Evening Post
1802-1857

Harpers Weekly 1860 A Pipe of Tobacco  Excerpt

A Pipe of Tobacco

Harper’s New Monthly Magazine

Bonded Tobacco Company brochure  p1

If the Facts Appeal to You Read This Booklet

Information Packet with information claiming to make “smoking safe for smokers”
The Bonded Tobacco Company
1931

Scientific American The Cigarette Doomed 1889  Full

The Cigarette Doomed

Scientific American
August 31, 1889

Health Cigars  border

We desire to call your attention to our health cigars

Letter to Mr. G.R. Solomon
Health Tobacco Company
April 19,  1904

How the Red Cross, New York Newspapers, and Tin Pan Alley

The popularity of cigarettes dramatically increased during World War I, and this was in part due to cigarettes being sent to the boys overseas. The funds for these shipments were raised in part by the Red Cross ladies auxiliary’s of medical societies and even medical association’s themselves, often the can was passed at movie theaters and some of these funds were sponsored by newspapers. The sheet music that you see are examples of the most popular form of music at that time, and The Makings of the USA: An Appeal in Song for Tobacco for the Boys Over There, is a great example of this. Other sheet music reflected the increasing romanticism of the cigarette, Two Cigarettes in the Dark and While a Cigarette was Burning, of course there’s Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and much later Sam Cooke’s Smoke Rings.

“Your Lips Are No Man’s Land But Mine”

Sheet music
Words by Arthur Guy Empey and music by Charles R. McCarron and Carey Morgan
Joseph W. Stern & Co. New York, NY
1918

1918 Makins of the USA Front Cover

“The Makin’s of the U.S.A. A Plea in Song for Tobacco for the Boys Over There”

Sheet Music
Words by Vincent Bryan and music by Harry Von Tilzer
New York, NY.
Harry Von Tilzer Music Publishing Co.
1918

1934 Two Cigarettes in the Dark Gloria Grafton

Two Cigarettes in the Dark

Sheet Music
Harry Madden & Philip Dunning
De Sylva Brown and Henderson, Inc.
1934

1938 While a Cigarette was Burning

While a Cigarette Was Burning

Sheet Music
Charles and Nick Kenny
ABC Music Corporation
1938

Learn more about tobacco’s role in the First World War and its lasting affect on the military society and the world in our exhibition: The Makin’s of a Nation: Tobacco in World War I 

WWI Logo White
Saturday Evening Post When Your Son Starts Smoking

When your Son Starts Smoking

Advertisement
Girard
The Saturday Evening Post
1910

The National Police Gazette May 19 1917 New York  Excerpt

Tobacco Heart!

Advertisement
The National Police Gazette
May 19, 1917

Brooklyn Camel Winner 1

Brooklyn Camel Prize Winner 

Photograph and Letter
Camel
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

1917 mecca nyc ad

1,000,000 Men Reach Their Goal

Advertisement
Mecca
The Evening World
January 28, 1917

1917 atc to every smoker in the city

To every smoker in the city…

Statement
American Tobacco Company
The Evening World
1917

Cremo Cigars

Spit is a horrid word…

The “war against spitting” was a public health initiative against spitting tobacco, cigars and later cigarettes were considered “healthier” alternatives to chewing tobacco which spread infectious disease like tuberculous.

Advertisement

Cremo Cigars

Camel Sales Book 1 Resize 60

Camel Cigarette Salesman Book

Printed in many languages used by representatives of the R.J. Reynolds company as they sold Camel cigarettes to the multitude of ethnic stores in New York City. 1929

Salesman Book
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.
1929

Camel ad New cellophane 1931

It keeps them so Mild and Fresh!

Cigarette Ad touting Cellophane wrapping to keep out moisture.

Advertisement
Camel
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.
Hearst’s International-Cosmopolitan
June, 1931

Pipe LaGuardia at Ease 2

Pipe LaGuardia at Ease

New York City’s Historic Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia smokes a corn cob pipe.

Photograph
The News Telegram (Portland, Oregon)
September 10, 1937

CAMEL INVITES YOU

Advertisement for the Camel Cigarette Exhibit at the 1942 Convention of the American Medical Association
New York State Journal of Medicine
June 1, 1942

1953 12 26 Tobacco Leaf Parliament Booth at AMA Clinical Session

Told 2,500 Doctors

Benson & Hedges Parliament Cigarettes exhibit at an American Medical Association Convention
The Tobacco Leaf
December 26, 1953

1953 06 20 Tobacco Leaf Parliament Booth at AMA Convention

Parliament Filter Mouthpiece

Parliament Cigarettes exhibit touting filters at the St. Louis convention of the American Medical Association
December 26, 1953

To learn more about the American Medical Association’s complicated association with the tobacco industry visit our exhibition The Unfiltered Truth About Smoking And Health The American Medical Association Rewrites Tobacco History

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BTBA NYC
 
Lorillard ad 1789 Lorillard and Tobacco book
Alfred Lyon The House That You Built
Marlboro NYT 1986
1950 Little Johnny Hospital Sign
NYSJM 10 1942
Use of Tobacco title page

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