Tobacco smoked at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis?

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Dec 22, 2020
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Pipe smoker and writer here. I'm needing some of you old students of this great hobby to search your recollections of anything grandpa said. What sort of tobacco (types / specific brands) was being smoked by Americans at the turn of the 20th century?
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,759
13,782
Humansville Missouri
I grew up with old men still talking about the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. My grandfather and grandmother both remembered it and raved about it.


It’s my understanding modern, moist, flavored, canned tobacco began about 1907 with RJ Reynold’s Prince Albert.

Pipe shops sold blends that included cavendish tobacco in 1904.

But unless they patronized a real smoke shop, virtually all pipe smokers then smoked tobacco packed in cloth sacks.
EB30A9DF-F55E-400E-A3CE-38E0F6066FF4.jpeg

Making those sacks was a cottage industry in the South.
Tobacco Bag Stringing Operations in North Carolina and Virginia - https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/abouttobacco/collection/tobacco_bag
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,759
13,782
Humansville Missouri
Both my father and grandfather smoked Half & Half without exception...
Half and Half was new in the twenties.

Here’s a 1927 magazine ad.

702B455B-493A-482E-BA28-0C46B5D6B12E.jpegBefore the 1907 Prince Albert can, smoking tobacco came packaged in cloth sacks.

When I started smoking fifty years ago, I could still buy Bull Durham, Our Advertiser, Country Gentleman, and Old Hillside in cloth sacks.

The only one I miss is Bull Durham.

 

canucklehead

Lifer
Aug 1, 2018
2,863
15,323
Alberta
Half and Half was new in the twenties.

Here’s a 1927 magazine ad.

View attachment 163907Before the 1907 Prince Albert can, smoking tobacco came packaged in cloth sacks.

When I started smoking fifty years ago, I could still buy Bull Durham, Our Advertiser, Country Gentleman, and Old Hillside in cloth sacks.

The only one I miss is Bull Durham.

Although the company claimed the formula was older, Half and Half was made by the American Tobacco Company in 1909 by mixing Lucky Strike (burley) and Buckingham cut plug (bright). The Lucky Strike logo was part of the label until 1939.

Screenshot_20220820-062918_Google.jpg
 

nolan613

Starting to Get Obsessed
May 21, 2019
151
189
78
Augusta, GA
Although the company claimed the formula was older, Half and Half was made by the American Tobacco Company in 1909 by mixing Lucky Strike (burley) and Buckingham cut plug (bright). The Lucky Strike logo was part of the label until 1939.

View attachment 163932
Lived in Durham for over a decade and am very familiar with the American Tobacco Company and the history. Tobacco and the Duke family were and still are a very big part of the city of Durham.
 

Peter Turbo

Lifer
Oct 18, 2021
1,157
8,292
CT, USA
Apparently the recipe for Wilkes Surburgs Crystal Palace dates back to before the American Civil War so maybe something like that? 1859 it says.

Hell of a blend as well.
 
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mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
Iwan Ries, the Chicago pipe and tobacco shop, was founded in 1857, so their in-house historian would probably have a record of what blends were sold during those early decades. They have some now-classic blends, like Three Star Blue, but I have no certainty that blend goes back that far, likely not.
 
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mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
At a whaling museum in up-state N.Y., there was a "typical" sea chest of a whaling ship sailor in the 19th Century that featured a drawstring bag of tobacco. I think that was the packaging of the time. Tobacco was relatively expensive at the time, so was a luxury. The museum type cast the MM hardwood pipe as the sailor's tobacco pipe, which though not historically accurate, was probably not a bad choice generically. Maybe a clay would have been better.
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,759
13,782
Humansville Missouri
Our Advertiser and Country Gentleman fifty years ago came in two sizes of cloth sacks.

The small ones were 15 cents and 1 1/2 ounces. There were larger sacks, maybe eight ounces, for 65 cents. I wish now I’d have bought a big sack.

I preferred Country Gentleman.

Bull Durham came in 3/4 ounce little sacks for 15 cents, and it seemed to be only for cigarettes.

Old Hillside was strong burley, made by Stoker’s. It came in 1 1/2 ounce sacks, and outlasted them all. I bought a sack maybe twenty years ago when it was discontinued. I still have some occasionally.

I just bought an unopened small sack of Our Advertiser for $10 delivered.

Let’s see how good it keeps?
 
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