Hall 1

Carter Hall
Dr. Rachel Gelfand
American Studies 202
7 December 2019

North Carolina’s “Bright-Leaf Tobacco” Industry

Introduction

Upon arriving at the New World in 1620, pilgrims from England were forced to quickly

adapt their lifestyles to a completely new area, relying on the agricultural techniques of Native

Americans to create for themselves a sustainable lifestyle, ultimately sowing the seeds for the

spawning of a world superpower over 150 years later. Since the dawn of America, the nation has

experienced significant economic growth as a result of a number of industrial and agricultural

movements.

For North Carolina, much of the advancements in the region have largely concerned

themselves with the cultivation of a variety of tobacco known as “bright-leaf” tobacco. Authors

such as Nannie May Tilley preserved much of the known history about the industry in works

such as her 1948 Bright-Tobacco Industry. Through a written medium, Tilley discusses the

extensive popularity of tobacco and its role as North Carolina’s cash crop. Furthermore, Tilley’s

work also discusses how the tobacco industry forever changed towns and cities like Durham.

Creative innovations in manufacturing, harvesting, and marketing of tobacco-related products

quickly made Durham a tobacco hub for the Old Belt, an area comprised of southern Virginia,

northwestern North Carolina and the NC Piedmont. Today, while the city of Durham is

recognized as a major element of North Carolina’s Research Triangle, committed to the

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development of new scientific and pharmaceutical technologies, the city’s tobacco legacy is

preserved through a number of minute mediums, capturing a past that changed it forever.

The Birth and Early Growth of a Legacy Industry

The Invaluable Accident

During the 17th and 18th centuries, North Carolina’s agricultural output was insignificant

in comparison to its colonial neighbors. Outcompeted in cotton, rice, and tobacco production, the

state was yearning for any spark that would catalyze their economic growth and make North

Carolina a major agricultural force. Ironically, the answer lied not in the hands of a businessman,

nor in the hands of a farmer, but in those of a slave named Stephen. On a farm in Caswell

County, Stephen oversaw the curing process of tobacco, a series of steps that converted the crop

harvested from the field into a form usable for creating cigars and pipe tobacco. The barn in

which he worked contained a fire, primarily heated my wood, that would heat the tobacco to

scalding temperatures to leave behind a leaf with a brown, charred color. One particular instance,

Stephen reportedly fell asleep beside the fire, awaking to the blaze nearly vanquished. Hurriedly,

the worker cast nearby charcoal onto the remaining embers, creating tobacco leaves with a

bright-yellow coloration, later given the name “bright-leaf” tobacco. (NCpedia 1) Unbeknown to

Stephen, he had just shifted the method of tobacco production nationwide.

As technology advanced, much of the bright-leaf tobacco harvested from fields was cured

by something known as a “flue,” or a machine adjoined to a barn that let heat enter the structure

without exposing the crops to smoke. Much of the recorded data about tobacco production in
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North Carolina refers to this variety as “flue-cured tobacco,” eventually dominating NC’s

production for decades, as evidenced by the production of a staggering 9.7 million pounds of

tobacco in 1955. (USDA 3)

Man and Machine: An Unstoppable Force

Introductory economics posits that for any product with a given supply to succeed in a

market, there must be an appropriate demand for its sale. With a massive supply of a newfound

variety of tobacco being produced in North Carolina, the state looked for ways to garner any

profit it could. Fortunately, fluctuations in what tobacco consumers bought were occurring in

tandem with the state’s bright-leaf tobacco surplus, creating a “perfect storm” for farmers and

businesses to advertise their crops. By the 19th century, tobacco buyers craved the Spanish

cigarette, made from Turkish tobacco which was heavily imported into the region. The North

Carolinian bright-leaf tobacco was of a similar taste and texture, offered at a price much more

affordable for American and British consumers. (POV 1) Businessmen such as Washington

Duke and W.T. Blackwell began finding ways to monopolize tobacco production, building

structures in Durham that housed both markets for selling crops and factories for mass-producing

cigars and cigarettes. W. Duke, Sons and Company and Bull Durham Tobacco Company would

transform the landscape of Durham, bringing to the region unparalleled economic growth from

all over the Southeast, with much of their legacy preserved in the streets and buildings of

Downtown Durham today.

In her work, Tilley explains that the strengthened economy for tobacco products in

Durham were the result of a two-step process. First, keen advertising incentivized buyers to
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purchase local and from particular companies. Afterwards, allowing machines to become a larger

part of the labor force saved manpower and produced products at a more efficient rate.

In 1884, W. Duke, Sons and Company advertised themselves as “up against a stone

wall,” having the incredibly tough challenge of dominating Bull Durham Tobacco as the primary

source of tobacco products. What enabled the company to surmount was, according to Tilley,

“dividing their profits with the dealers and consumers;” when the internal revenue tax was

lowered in 1883, many companies refused to budge on price for fear of hurting profits. Having

nothing to lose, the Dukes lowered their prices but experienced an overwhelming growth in

sales, advertising by simply garnering more product placement than other nearby competitors.

Coupled with the installment of mechanical labor later that year, W. Duke, Sons and Company

quickly became a major tobacco empire by the turn of the 20th century.

From the utilization of a conveyor belt building early-model Ford vehicles to robot

vacuum-cleaners allowing for effortless cleaning of the home, the mechanization of labor has

been an integral part of advancements in American innovation. During the early-1800s, cigars

and cigarettes were rolled by hand, companies dependent on machine only for the conversion of

tobacco into usable forms. Little innovation in the tobacco industry occurred for most of the

century until the patenting of the Bonsack machine in 1880. Created by James A. Bonsack, the

invention produced cigarettes at a rate that fast outperformed what a single skilled worker could

accomplish. Bonsack’s innovation first took root in Salem, Virginia in 1881, though some were

installed in European factories. Locally, Washington Duke bought and installed the invention en

masse in his factories:

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“...the Dukes must have felt certain of the success of the machine by August, 1886, when

they installed five more in their Durham factory, thus making a total of fifteen in one

plant and a… daily output of [1.5 million] cigarettes.” (Tilley 575)

Coupled with the creation and patenting of a “slide box” by James B. Duke, W. Duke, Sons and

Company found a way to capitalize on a successful business model just as Standard Oil and U.S.

Steel had, bringing fame and further economic growth to the Durham area.

The End of an Era

An Unforeseen Evil

Just as Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan slowly fell from industrial greatness, James

B. Duke and his fellow members of the American Tobacco Company (the amalgamation of

twelve different tobacco businesses, including W. Duke, Sons and Company) experienced a stark

decline in sales in the 1960s. In 1964, Luther L. Terry, M.D., Surgeon General of the U.S. Public

Health Service, unveiled a dark secret hiding behind one of America’s, and North Carolina’s

most prominent industries. The so-called “Surgeon General Reports,” a collection of “more than

7,000 articles related to smoking and disease,” concluded that smoking cigarettes was a major

cause of lung cancer and chronic bronchitis for the American people. Throughout the rest of the

decade, laws enacted in 1965 and 1969 instituted that health warnings be posted on cigarette

containers, media could no longer publish cigarette-related advertisements, and that an annual

report on smoking’s health consequences be created. (CDC 1)

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Durham Today

The American Tobacco Company rebranded itself in 1969, dissolving into four entities:

an eponymous business, Reynolds Tobacco Company, Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company, and

Lorillard Tobacco Company. (American Tobacco Company 1) The new American Tobacco

would leave Durham in the late 1980s, leaving behind the American Tobacco Historical District

and Brightleaf Square, locations that currently house a number of restaurants, businesses, and

shopping centers that operate in many of the same buildings which made the city famous. The

Durham Bulls Athletic Park, home of the Durham Bulls, takes its name from the Bull Durham

Tobacco Company. Additionally, the 1988 Bull Durham movie about the team includes popular

advertisements and products from the company’s history. Lastly, the “Tobacco Road” Rivalry

between Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill refers to the eight

miles separating the two campuses and the tobacco fields that once surrounded the area,

reflecting on how two of the nation’s most elite institutions arose from humble beginnings.

Conclusion

Through what may arguably be referred to as accident, North Carolina experienced one

of its largest economic growths since the colonial era. Tobacco became the state’s cash crop for

much of the 19th and 20th centuries, calling sprawling cities like Durham home. For over a

century, millions of pounds of tobacco were put through advancing innovations to make

cigarettes and resulting products originating from the city’s factories were sold nationwide.

Publications such as Bright-Tobacco Industry tell the ascension to fame for businessmen such as

Washington and James Duke, along with others such as W.T. Blackwell and J.R. Green, who
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recorded unparalleled profits that led to the betterment of Durham’s Duke University and the

city’s health system, attracting individuals worldwide to be a part of next-generation medicinal

research and academic study. Today, Durham’s agricultural history can be found all over the

city, telling the interesting story of the tobacco capital of North Carolina.
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Works Cited

CDC. “History of the Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health.” Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 18 Dec. 2018,

www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/history/index.htm.

“NCpedia: Bright Leaf Tobacco.” Bright Leaf Tobacco, 2019, www.ncpedia.org/anchor/bright-le

af-tobacco.

POV. “North Carolina & Tobacco: Historical Background: Bright Leaves: POV: PBS.” North

Carolina & Tobacco: Historical Background, PBS, 23 Jan. 2005,

archive.pov.org/brightleaves/historical-background/.

Tilley, N. M. The Bright-Tobacco Industry: 1860-1929. The University of North Carolina Press,

1948.

Unknown Authors. “American Tobacco Company.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Nov.

2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Tobacco_Company.

USDA, 2018, Annual Statistical Bulletin,

www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/North_Carolina/Publications/Annual_Statistical_B

ulletin/AgStat/Section05.pdf.