Joyce reminded me of the Tobacco Press that Daddy made. His own invention she believes. He constructed a box frame with a hinged lid. He placed a stick of tobacco containing about ten or twelve hands in the box and pulled the lid down to flatten them. The pressed tobacco was carefully put in a protected place,and covered to keep it from drying. This would result in a neat presentation at the auction. See the Eastern North Caroline Digital Library for another view of their artifact seen at the left.
Very few women living in rural communities smoked during the early and late thirties. One might observe an old lady who chewed tobacco evidenced by brown stains at the corners of her mouth, and some elderly women smoked a corncob pipe. Once I saw a young woman at the store smoking as she breast fed a young baby. All this looked very unbecoming to me.
Almost all the men and older boys smoked. Many 'rolled their own'. Loose tobacco was sold in a small cloth bag. One brand was Bull Durham. The little bag was closed with a drawstring. It came with a package of small sheets of tissue paper. Holding a cigarette paper in one hand between thumb and forefinger, a smoker skillfully poured some tobacco onto the paper. Closing the drawstring with his teeth, he carefully rolled the paper around the tobacco. He then licked the edge of the paper with his tongue to seal the roll. There you have a hand rolled cigarette! Cigarettes that came in a package were called 'tailor-made'.
One time I decided to roll a cigarette with a piece of brown paper bag and some home grown tobacco. This took place behind the smoke house because I'd better not get caught! I got it rolled well enough, but didn't really care for the taste. WWII brought 'ready made cigarettes' to the country store. Smoking became very much a part of the culture. Magazine ads displayed glamorous girls puffing cigarettes The sale of the little cloth bags was replaced by the 'Tailor Mades'
When I was a freshman in high school, the boys usually had a pack of cigarettes in a shirt pocket. We girls thought it was fun to tease them to give us a cigarette. We would hide in the out house to puff on them. Once someone accidentally set the toilet on fire! Not a good place to hide.
After some serious thought at age 14, and knowing Daddy and Mother would be very disappointed with me for smoking, I decided to resist the peer pressure and determined that I would not allow myself to become controlled by cigarettes. And besides, I certainly had absorbed enough nicotine in my body for a lifetime working in the tobacco. I had no trouble keeping my pledge.
Today tobacco is not tied into "hands'. The leaves are pulled from the stalk and placed into bins. When a bin is full its contents are placed into a press and pressed. When the pressing is complete there is a cube of tobacco about 2.5 feet square. Each cube contains tobacco of a certain grade. That is the way it goes to market. So, yes, your father was ahead of the times.
ReplyDeleteThe little bags were great for holding marbles, and Prince Albert tin cans had multiple uses and were treasured.
I had a cousin that tried really hard to get me to smoke. He had Kools with menthol. He said try it, it won't hurt you. I took a puff and said, "Yuk, that's awful!". He said, "You have to get used to it." I said, "Why?". He died many years later of emphysema.
Bob Edwards