A Universe of Tobacciana – The George Arents Collection
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Kevin Godbee - Apr 29, 2014
- 8 min read
Martin Hunter
Tucked away on the third floor of the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue are two Georgian-style, pine-paneled rooms, resembling those of a country manor house – which indeed they once were – that contain the finest array of tobacco-related material in the world: The George Arents, Jr. Collection.
Once you’ve made your way through the long, cabinet-walled reading room, you can sink into a cozy sofa near a fireplace which bears an engraved motto by Edward Bulwer-Lytton: “The man who smokes, thinks like a sage and acts like a Samaritan.” Over this Georgian mantle hangs a painting by the poet e.e. Cummings, of a pipesmoker. Thus comfortably seated, one has an urge to light up a pipe oneself (not allowed), take a sip of an ice-cold martini (not offered), and ask the curator of the Arents collection, Virginia Bartow, who was this major collector, and why did he choose tobacco for his subject?
“George Arents came from a multigenerational Virginia tobacco-growing family, whose firm was one of the founding members of the American Tobacco Company,” explains Bartow. Arents initially worked with the family firm, eventually patenting cigarette- and cigar-rolling machines, which he went on to manufacture and which eventually produced two thirds of the cigars smoked in this country. He moved from Virginia to New York, where his company had its headquarters and, in time, built an estate, ‘Hillbrook,’ in suburban Westchester County.
In 1893, as a young man of 17, while browsing in an antique bookshop, Arents purchased a pamphlet titled “A Pinch of Snuff,” for $2.25. This first purchase lit up – if you will – what was to become a burning passion for tobacciana, which continued throughout his life. Fascinated by all aspects of tobacco, Arents went on to collect not only books, but any item related to tobacco that appealed to his imagination and fancy. Shortly after his initial purchase, he bought a very rare and expensive volume published in 1507, Cosmographiae Introductio, which was written by Martin Waldesmuller, a young teacher in eastern France, who cites an account of explorer Amerigo Vespucci’s having observed Native Americans chewing a certain green plant. “This book remains the earliest printed reference to tobacco, and the year 1507 became for Arents the starting point of his collection,” explains Bartow.
From the 16th century onward, the use of tobacco, unknown to the world outside the Americas, spread eastward. Tobacco’s history, culture, use, and economy have become worldwide in the nearly 500 years since the plant’s discovery, and it was the written, painted, printed, etched, and manufactured tangible history of the subject of tobacco that fascinated and inspired George Arents to comb the world for his collection.
By the time Arents began his collecting, the number of books and objects relating to tobacco was already immense. It was necessary, therefore, for Arents to limit his collecting to what was both rare and – true for all collectors – what was interesting to him. Before Arents, there had been no systematic collecting of tobacco-related material, but with his passion and his fortune, Arents was able to accomplish this in 50 years. By 1952, five great illustrated volumes were published on the collection, and are themselves a monument of tobacco history: “Tobacco, its History Illustrated by Books, Manuscripts, and Engravings in the Library of George Arents, Jr.”
While Arents’ collection would ultimately contain thousands of volumes related to every aspect concerning tobacco, it by no means developed into only a library of books. Arents’ son, while driving in New England, spied a cigar store Indian which now is one of a pair – “he Squanto, she Pocahontas” – that greet visitors on their entry into the reading room.
Hans Neukmann, Habana Splendid poster (no date)
Systematically and endlessly, Arents carefully acquired items of every imaginable variety and use. There are 18th century snuff vending machines and tobacco pouches, as well as storing and carrying containers of many varieties from numerous periods in history. Sheet music, with allusions to smoking, art prints from the Renaissance to Monet and Van Gogh, picturing every aspect of smoking and chewing and sniffing tobacco, abound. The collection contains many thousands of cigar box labels and bands, as well as letters, manuscripts, and everything related to tobacco and smoking that delighted his fancy – and now ours.
As curator, Virginia Bartow, along with every curator since Arents’ death in 1960, has added to the Collection, keeping it current. “Every work must have some link to tobacco,” she indicates. And this relation is apparent, for instance, in a series of photographs portraying smoking writers, artists, and musicians, such as Peggy Lee and Bob Dylan.
Original Honus Wagner baseball card
The front reading room at the New York Public Library was in fact designed to complement the library in Arents’ Westchester home, and was constructed in 1943 when the collection came to the Library. The walls are lined with bookcases, and a number of objects are displayed as decoration. They include the aforementioned cigar store Indians, and a rare figure of a Scotsman holding a snuff box, which had originally been a street sign. The figure is rare because most such signs were destroyed in 1745, during the Scottish Rebellion. There are European and American tobacco pots, rasps, drying forms, humidors, pouches, and a plethora of pipes. There is one of 40 or so meerschaum pipes once owned by the writer Amy Lowell, although she herself was only known to smoke cigars. Less exotic, but more expensive, is an original Honus Wagner baseball card. A pristine example of the same card fetched over $450,000 at auction a few years ago, when purchased by hockey legend Wayne Gretzky and then Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall. These cards were originally given out as premiums in packs of Sweet Caporal cigarettes. And there is a quaint little brass box which opened, several centuries ago, at the drop of a penny, to dispense a pinch of snuff. Speaking of snuff, we also find the pewter snuff box that Charles Dickens carried with him on speaking tours.
A rare figure of a Scotsman holding a snuff box
That Shakespeare never mentioned either tobacco or smoking (although the pipe was already flourishing in his day), was a fact that proved initially frustrating to Arents. However, he was more than able to satisfy himself with the countless allusions to the happy habit occurring in other literature. While it would be impossible to list even a fraction of these works, Arents purchased many unique items, such as James the First of England’s “Counterblaste to Tobacco,” of 1604 (a copy of which took Arents 30 years to find). There are thousands of examples in general and fictional literature in both printed and manuscript form. The collection includes both the handwritten manuscript and original typescript of Oscar Wilde’s, The Importance of Being Earnest, which contains the wonderful scene between Worthing and Lady Bracknell, where she grills him unmercifully to determine his matrimonial suitability for her daughter. Questioned about whether or not he smoked, Worthing replies in the affirmative. “I am glad to hear it,” she counters. “A man should always have an occupation of some kind.” It’s perhaps one of the most famous, and surely one of the funniest, literary allusions to smoking. Additionally, there are works by Shaw and Waugh and Faulkner, among others, representing the literature of this century. The collection now contains over 10,000 books and 1,000 manuscripts of every conceivable variety and interest – all with mentions of tobacco or smoking.
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Although Columbus mentioned smoking in his journal, he did not know what tobacco was called. One can discover this by visiting the collection and researching any area of interest or pleasure. For example, there is a letter written by George Washington in 1762 discussing a shipment of his tobacco, or writings of Thomas Jefferson, whose wealth also derived from the sale of tobacco. Arents once said in a lecture, “Where there’s smoke, there’s literature.” And a friend once told him, “If I had a library like yours, I’d puff with pride.” Although Arents was passionate about tobacco and everything related to it , he never smoked!
Continuing our research, we learn that smoking was probably introduced to Europe by Sir John Hawkins, who returned to England after he and his men, while on an expedition to Florida, saw French colonists smoking the weed. This would make the Sunshine State the first American destination for smoking European visitors. The French obviously liked it, for they have been smoking heavily ever since.
But it was initially in England where tobacco, following a brief period of belief in its medicinal properties, had its most extensive use. Jerome E. Brooks, the author of the original five-volume catalogue, wrote in the Library’s “Bulletin” in January 1944, about the developing trend of English pipesmoking: “The smoking habit, by the early part of the 17th century, had developed into a national recreation … the impetus to the habit, after it had become pretty well established in seaport towns and among English mariners, was given to Sir Walter Raleigh. He introduced neither the plant nor the custom into England, but he was the first advertiser on a national scale of the joys and benefits of smoking, and his encouragement of the habit added a host of smokers to the then small ranks. He’s said to have taught Queen Elizabeth the proper use of the pipe, and his literary friends and associates furthered the cause of their favorable reference as a beneficial social pleasure.”
One of writer Amy Lowell’s meerchaum pipes
Initially in 1943, and until his death in 1960, George Arents continually donated new works to this unique treasure trove at the library, which was conveniently across the street from his office. He dropped in most days to visit his collection, as we may do ourselves when the spirit so moves. But first, tap out your pipe before entering.
PipeSMOKE – Spring 98
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 636. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Barry Kane. Barry started smoking a pipe in 1961 when he was 14-years old. Back then it seemed like everybody smoked, and you could buy pipes and tobacco just about anywhere. Barry is a true old-school pipe smoker, sticking to just one blend. See if you can guess which one before listening. At the top of the show Brian will give his take on Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s purchase of Mac Baren and Sutliff Tobacco and their announcement that they will be shut down.
There’s a pipe in my collection that I cannot bring myself to smoke, though I’ve had it for more years than I care to recall. It’s old, or shall I say, well experienced; that experience, that oldness came to it long before it was in my possession. The pipe is an old Comoy’s Grand Slam from the 1940s. The shape (#93), a slightly canted, stack billiard (sometimes referred to as a Belgian) is right up my alley, and it’s a beautiful example of it. It came to me with some wear and tear; nothing unusual for an old pipe, but more the signs of one that has been well loved, smoked a lot, treated as a favorite tool, cherished, in a sense, by frequent use. It’s the pipe equivalent of a vintage car that’s been driven a lot, enjoyed fully and maintained adequately, rather than one kept in a spotless garage, dusted and detailed weekly, brought out only for leisurely Sunday drives, or to be ogled behind the ropes at the next Concours d’Elegance. When it arrived, those uncounted years ago, it wanted a little restoration. Nothing dramatic needed to be done to it, but the stem was oxidized, the finish a little dingy. The cake was even and fairly thin, and the airway was relatively clean, both signs that its previous owner cared for it, but the bowl’s surface was a little drab and dull. It took little effort to reveal its beauty, to show the lovely contrasted stain and interesting grain beneath the old wax. I often think I should do before and after photos of pipes that I work on, but those thoughts always come after the work’s been done. This one would have been a great illustration of how years of handling that can sometimes make a pipe more beautiful, can other times make it just look grungy. Once I’d cleaned up the externals, it was time to address the inside bits. I approach this a little bassackwards, I realize. It would be more sensible to take care of the inside before addressing the outside, but it’s how I roll. If an old pipe isn’t pretty to look at, it’s unlikely that I’ll care much about it, and cleaning is usually the hardest part, or at least the most boring part of any restoration for me. Alcohol and pipe cleaners. Lots of pipe cleaners. That’s why I leave it for last. Sometimes, I’ll even give a pipe a test smoke before a deep cleaning, just for a point of reference. I gave it a sniff to get an idea of what I was up against, and it stopped me cold. There in that bowl was an aroma that I had not smelled in decades. My head was instantly filled with memories of being in the back room of a fabled Berkeley tobacconist’s shop where I stumbled upon a few jars of long discontinued blends. One of them, a blend called Forty and Eight, had the most engaging and unusual scent of any tobacco I’d stuck my schnoz into. It was sweet, but not in a candy store way. There were none of the usual vanilla, cherry, berry or anise notes of typical aromatics, nothing that could be compared to aftershave or deodorant soap, but something almost musky, a little earthy, something exotic. The shop’s owner couldn’t tell me what was in it, how, or where it had been produced. The old blend had been retired before he’d bought the place. The printed catalogue gave no clues, either, other than being overprinted with the word “DISCONTINUED” in bold, rubber-stamp type. (And, I don’t recall it as being “highly aromatic” as the description indicates.) There was still quite a bit in the jar. Being, at that point, an intrepid explorer of all kinds of tobaccos, whether I thought I’d like them or not, I had to give it a try. It was burly based, but also comprised a good measure of virginia leaf, and maybe some other varieties; I didn’t have enough experience at the time to really pick it apart. But, that aroma was unlike anything I’d experienced before or since. It was something now completely lost to time. Until it wasn’t. Memories are powerful things, and there is no sense more tightly bound to memory than our sense of smell. One whiff was all it took to carry me back in time, conjuring a vivid recollection of something long submerged in the inky depths of a subconscious mind. Look, I know as well as anyone that pipes are meant to be smoked, and that many feel it almost sacrilegious to have a pipe and not set it to its intended task. In this case, I simply can’t. I won’t. Ever. Rationally, I am fairly certain this pipe would probably be a great smoke. It was too well loved by its previous caretaker to be anything less than that. My choice not to smoke it is an emotional one, not something rational. Of the thousands of pipes that have passed through my hands over the years, this is the only one to create such a singular and vivid, almost Proustian recollection of temps perdu, of lost time. It revivified a long dormant memory that is mine, and mine alone, and that’s enough. I keep it in a drawer with other old English pipes. In some ways, it’s nothing special, just a nice old pipe. I don’t lavish it with any particular care that arguably befits the hidden treasure that it holds. It’s not in a special box, or displayed preciously in a glass cabinet. Every once in a while, I take it out, point my nose bowlwards, and every time, those memories return just as powerfully as they did the first time. I have no idea how long it’s been since its last owner smoked it, but in the years I’ve had it, there seems to have been very little degradation of the aroma, and that’s […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 635. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with James Ravenwood. James is the boutique tobacco blender of Ravenwood Blends. His blending started out as a fun hobby, and he now has professionally packaged commercially available products with some great tin art. Part of his interest in pipe smoking goes back to fond memories of a retired Navy Veteran that lived on his street while he was growing up that would sit in his driveway smoking a pipe all day. Later, in 2011 he began smoking pipes and soon after started experimenting with mixing different tobaccos. His other hobby, that he has been doing for 30 years, is photography. He takes wonderful photos of outdoor spaces, and still life pictures of pipes and tobacco. You can see them on his Instagram @thebriarfellowship. At the top of the show we’ll have an Ask the Pipemaker segment with renowned pipe artisan Jeff Gracik.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 634! Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Warren Ertle. Warren is an extremely accomplished musician with a PhD in music. He started early as a percussionist in sixth grade. Later his grandmother got him a cheap Casio keyboard which he taught himself to play. He started playing in blues bands in high school, and has been a pianist with jazz big bands for years. Even though he was already a professional musician, he took his first real piano lesson when he enrolled in college with his studies in classical music. He is of course a pipe smoker. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, let’s just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. That’s better, isn’t it? What’s got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. Or the wild turkeys gobbling in the backwoods or all the fuss and feathers over the big one—Christmas. No, it is that we might need to take note of all the little things that mean so much to us. Like a good sunrise (seriously, Pundit has not gone all Pollyanna.) Mayhaps we need to appreciate more of what we have than what we have not. Or something like that. Like, a good pipe in the morning with coffee as the dawn brings us coolish weather now that we have flipped the calendar to autumn. But it also brings beautiful leaves that have become a spectacle of technicolor in the wind. It is the little things. The rereading of an enjoyable book and finding something you did not see or learn in the first go-round. Or a stunning phrase you commit to memory with the re-read, while smoking that favorite pipe. And you notice a superior puff that just seems to be different. It’s in the air and the seasons of meaningful little things. It’s aromatic! 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Now, if you have read some of the great authors of the past and present, their pipes were always nearby. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be a three-pipe problem at times. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre require time with your pipes to reflect on the existential problems and solutions these authors provide in learned novels and other narratives. Or take Edwin Hubble and Bertrand Russell, philosophers of another world. Pipes are required for reading. The quantum lode of ideas Pundit is attempting to sort out is that our pipes are relaxing and stimulate our thoughts and creativity. Especially in these last months of the year. Many times Pundit has had that light bulb flick on while smoking my beloved pipes. And friends in Pipedom, it ain’t easy to turn on the lights in Pundit’s rock pit head. Now it’s time for a quote from a Pipe Smoker of the Past. Shelby Foote was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., and died June 27, 2005, in Memphis, Tenn. A fact is not a truth until you love it—Shelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. That’s one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
That is a great read Kevin, thanks for reviving it
Excellent morning read. Thanks.
As a follow-up, here is a link to some digital scans of his collection of artwork.
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgdivisionbrowseresult.cfm?div_id=hsa
Another must see place in NYC.
Gotta keep this on the down low less the smoking Nazis decide to purge the collection for the good of the children.
An amazing place and an amazing description of such a vast array of a collection.
Wow kevin thanks for the history read loved it.
Much thanks to Alan Schwartz & Kevin Godbee for making these archived articles available to us.
+1 petergunn. Wouldn’t that be a tragedy? Great article Kevin. Thank you
Enjoyable read indeed.
Many thanks.
well kids pack your bags daddy is taking us to new york
I finally have a reason to revisit the Big Apple!
The article implies that you can just wander into the room housing the Arents collection and take a gander. Maybe I’m reading a bit too much into it, or maybe restrictions were different 16 years ago when this article was published, but nowadays getting in is a more involved.
If you’re from out of town you have to register in advance, answering all sorts of nosy questions to establish bona fides and tell them exactly what you want to do in there (if you’re local you can sometimes register on the spot, but the book you’re looking for may not be readily available). Then when you arrive you find that the door is kept locked; you have to knock discreetly and hope that one of the attendees can hear you and lets you in (the password, by the way, is “swordfish”).
Once inside you show government issued photo id, sign some paperwork, and wait for them to fetch whatever it is you want to look at. Depending on the book, they’ll offer you pencils (no pens are allowed), a cloth covered weight to gently keep the pages open, and I think white gloves (I’m not sure about the last; it’s been a couple of years since I visited).
Oh, and if you cough too loudly they beat you senseless with a small lead statue of Alfred Dunhill. Just kidding about the last part; or I think I am. I never wanted to take the chance of coughing and find out.
All in all an amazing collection, and a neat experience visiting the room in which it’s housed. But seriously it’s a bit more complicated than just wandering inside on a whim.
Thanks for re-posting this very interesting article. 2 questions though, Arents paid $2.25 for a pamphlet in 1893? That would have been a small fortune, no? And #2, I’d like to read more about the antique snuff vending machines, any tips as to where to search?