Tobacco
The earliest European settlers of the Jamestown colony found
that tobacco was a profitable export. Tobacco was a very valuable
commodity from the start of colonization in North America, and
was often used as a form of currency. It even helped fund the
American Revolution, serving as collateral for loans from Europe.
In the early 17th century, growers refined the crop, importing
seeds from Caribbean and South American types to develop plants
that pleased their European consumers. Before 1760, when Pierre
Lorillard founded a company to mass-produce pipe tobacco, cigars,
and snuff, the majority of tobacco products used by the colonists
was processed in England or Scotland or made in small local factories.
With the growing popularity of smoking, other manufacturing plants
soon appeared.
An increasing penchant for small paper-rolled cigars popular
in Spain prompted Phillip Morris to market the first American
hand-rolled cigarettes in 1847, and soon other companies like
J. E. Liggett & Brothers were manufacturing their own cigarettes.
In 1875 R. J. Reynolds began to produce chewing tobacco.
Technological advances and new machinery allowed tobacco companies
to increase production in the latter half of the 19th century,
and by the early 1900's cigarettes and cigars were the most prevalent
tobacco products available.
The market exploded during the First World War (1914–1918).
World War II (1939–1945) saw cigarette sales hit record
highs with the production of several popular brands, Camel, Lucky
Strike, and Pall Mall. In the 1950's, Kent, Winston, and Salem,
the first filter-tipped menthol cigarette, entered the market
and became top sellers. Despite negative advertising promoted
in the 1960's and 1970's, as well as the current lawsuits filed
against tobacco companies, the industry continues to flourish.
Tobacco products are widely marketed outside the United States,
allowing tobacco its place as a valuable commodity for export
in the American economy.
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