Duke Tobacco and the Cigarette
When James Buchanan "Buck" Duke took the helm of W. Duke & Sons tobacco in the 1870s, he wanted Duke & Sons to outsell rival Bull Durham Tobacco and become the most profitable tobacco company in the country. The key to Duke's success was machine-rolled cigarettes.
The cigarette slowly increased in popularity in America after the Civil War, but it lagged behind loose tobacco and cigars through the 1870s. It was not until the early 1880s that pre-rolled cigarettes became popular. By the mid 1880s, competition to sell cigarettes was stiff.
Seeking lower labor costs, Virginia cigarette manufacturers John Allen and Lewis Ginter offered a reward to the first person to develop a cigarette-rolling machine. Twenty-one-year-old James Bonsack invented a working yet imperfect machine in 1880. Though it was the best machine developed, none of the major cigarette manufacturers was willing to take a chance - none except Duke, who leased a Bonsack machine in 1884.
With the help of technician W. O'Brien and salesman D. B. Sprouse, W. Duke & Sons perfected the machine and mastered its use. The fast and cheap production process gave Duke the competitive edge he sought.
As Duke's profits soared, competitors who had hesitated to move away from hand- rolled varieties decided to invest in machines as well. The public devoured the cheaper prices that came with machine production and increased competition. As competition surged in the late 1880s, so did advertising budgets and creative methods to sell tobacco.
Right: Letter from W. Duke Sons & Co. to D.B. Strouse. Courtesy of Duke University.
what is a baseball card?
The Trade Card, the CDV, and the Cigarette Card
Baseball cards as we know them today began their life as advertising tools.
After the Civil War, baseball increased in popularity in towns and cities across the United States. Sporting goods companies used the backs of photographic prints of well-known teams to advertise their business. These were the first rudimentary baseball cards.
The evolution of the baseball card is the result of several simultaneous developments:
- Advancements in printing and advertising techniques gave rise to trade cards. Trade cards were thin-stock cards that featured colorful advertisements of products and landscapes. Trade cards were distributed by businesses that sold tobacco products and were collected by their customers.
- "Cardomania" was an international Victorian craze of collecting small portraits - called cartes de visite - pasted into scrapbooks. Americans collected the trade cards and pasted them into albums. The "Cardomania" phenomenon made its way to the United States around the time that trade cards were becoming popular.
- Tobacco companies already used large premiums, signs and magazine advertising to sell their products and were seeking new methods.
- Small card stiffeners inserted in cigarette packs became the ideal method to take advantage of the card-collecting public. Insert cards, as they were known, first comprised photos pasted onto cardboard. The company's name was printed on the front and later the back of cards. Soon, color lithographs replaced these early insert cards and featured royalty, animals & nature, famous places, "beauties," military heroes and especially athletes.
- During this time period, the National League marked its first full decade.
The growing popularity of baseball led many manufacturers to include ballplayers and athletes on insert cards. Some included only baseball players. The baseball card was born.
Competition, Tobacco Cards, and American Tobacco
Millions of baseball cards were produced for the cigarette wars that raged between 1886 and 1890. Duke's mastering of the Bonsack cigarette-rolling machine heightened competition within the tobacco industry and drove the production of insert cards. By 1886, five major firms, known as the "Big Five," were producing the most cigarettes: W. Duke & Sons, Allen & Ginter, Kimball, Goodwin and Kinney. While all of the "Big Five" produced insert cards, the two biggest sets were Duke's Actresses and Actors and Goodwin's Baseball set. Both sets contained over 2000 cards each.
Being in the "Big Five" was not enough to satisfy Buck Duke's ambition. Duke's advertising team, including Edward Small, set about to reinvent tobacco advertising and beat the competition, especially Bull Durham. Small had been one of, if not the first, to secure the rights to a celebrity's image. This development became a cornerstone of the advertising business, especially sports advertising and baseball cards. Duke's investment in advertising drove the competition to invest as well. This advertising blitz led to countless products. However, none lasted longer in the American imagination than the insert card.
Within a few years, W. Duke & Sons saw profits large enough to lead the industry. In 1890, Duke led consolidation of the major tobacco firms in the U.S. into the American Tobacco Company (ATC). At the turn of the century, ATC bought up more and more small firms and worked toward consolidating the European market. The heyday of the insert card craze seemed to have passed, along with the intense competition that the 1880s cigarette wars had bred.
Trust busting: Sherman act and the t206 set
America was baseball crazy in the early 1900s. By 1909, baseball was the most popular sport in the country.
Yet, with the end of the cigarette wars, only a few sets of insert cards, postcards and game cards were produced in the early years of the 20th century. No national set of baseball cards was produced to capture the baseball-loving public's imagination as had the trade and insert cards of the 1880s.
Meanwhile, Duke's tobacco empire was in danger. In 1909, the U.S. Government brought ATC to the Supreme Court for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. This law had been passed to break up monopolies, businesses that were so big they stifled competition and drove up prices.
Background image: 1909-1911 American Tobacco T206 Insert Cards, Various Players. Courtesy of Curator's Collection.
Baseball's popularity, the impending breakup of ATC, rising tobacco tariffs, and fluctuating world financial markets all led to a decision by Duke and ATC to invest once again in insert-card advertising. This set in motion the development of the famous T206 set, which includes the most famous baseball card of them all, the T206 Honus Wagner.
Background image: 1909-1911 American Tobacco T206 Insert Cards, Various Players. Courtesy of Curator's Collection.
Historians and collectors do not know exactly how many cards were produced, but estimates are in the millions. The cards were printed at the American Lithographic Company on Park Avenue in New York City and shipped to tobacco factories to be inserted into packs. Thousands of cards were distributed through Factory No. 42, the Liggett & Myers factory at Duke and Main Streets in Durham.
By 1911 the Supreme Court decision loomed, and the dissolution of ATC was imminent. Many cards were diverted from other factories to No. 42, which distributed many of the final T206s.
Legacy: Duke, durham, and the million dollar baseball card industry
The popularity of the T206 set produced by the American Tobacco Company (ATC) inspired manufacturers of candy, gum, and other tobacco brands to create their own cards. The years between 1909 and the beginning of the First World War saw a glut of cards and other premiums. ATC produced several other sets as well, including the T205 and T207 sets in 1911.
Left: T210 Jud Hyames, Wilmington Sailors. Courtesy of Library of Congress.
On November 16, 1911, ATC was formally dissolved after the Supreme Court ruled that it was "in restraint of trade and an attempt to monopolize." This ruling transferred the various ATC brands into the power of several smaller companies.
Following the breakup of ATC, baseball cards in cigarette packs declined. This was due in part to federal criticism of tobacco advertising to children, in part to an "anti-gimmick" approach that arose after 1911, and finally to paper shortages during the First World War. Card production and distribution lagged, and no significant, nationally distributed baseball sets were ever used again to promote cigarettes.
Right: H.H. Hoffman, Raleigh Red Birds, T209. Courtesy of Contentnea.com.
Though American Tobacco's involvement in baseball card history ends with the judicial ruling of 1911, the influence of the sets ATC created is apparent in subsequent cards issued with gum and candy products throughout the rest of the century. These products were produced, distributed and sold much like tobacco and were specifically marketed to children.
By the time the famous 1952 Topps set was issued (which would inspire the nostalgia-fueled baseball card craze of the 1980's), printing, distribution, contract and copyright methods used had all been formalized by the tobacco issues, which existed due to the influence of Buck Duke and Durham tobacco.
Left: Red Walsh, Greensboro Champs, T209. Courtesy of Contentnea.com
Acknowledgements
This exhibit was curated by Adam Berenbak and designed by Lincoln Hancock. It was on display at the Museum of Durham History in 2016. We would like to extend a special thanks to Duke Energy Foundation and Durham Merchants Association Charitable Foundation for supporting the Our Bull City program, which includes this exhibit. Further thanks to the Capitol Broadcasting Corporation and The Snyderman Fund for their support. The Our Bull City program gives community members a public venue for highlighting historic people, places, events or issues of their own choosing.
This digitized exhibit was designed by Abby Hjelmstad in 2023.