Smoke NIgger Head. (Inter-racial scene in a tobacco store.. ) First edition..
Rochester, NY: Wh. S. Kimball & Company, late 19th Century. Color lithograph trade card.17.7 x 22.9 cm.
Large format and rare.
...niggerhead n. ; 1. (orig. and chiefly US, also negro head, nigger-foot, nigger twist) cheap, dark tobacco designed for smoking and chewing. 1809 · 1979 ; 2. (US) ...
...Mencken Amer. Lang. Supplement I 528: In 1943 there was another [uproar] over the belated discovery that the American Tobacco Company was making a brand of tobacco called Nigger Head...............Kimball's Tobacco Company was the largest tobacco company in Rochester, established in 1846 with James C. Hart. Kimball
bought a large five-story brick building along the Erie Canal at
· south St. Paul and Court Streets and reoutfitted it for manufacturing tobacco. A powerful steam engine on the ground floor drove
the machinery, cutters and hoists that allowed a single man to lift
great weights. Steam powered the elevator that swiftly carried employees between the five floors.
Only experienced cutters were hired to guage the cuts of
tobacco to ensure uniformity. The Union & Advertiser observed,
"These machines are carefully adjusted under the care of experienced men, who see to it that the cut tobacco is uniform in its fibres, adapted to the tongue of the dainty chewer who rolls his quid
as a solace and quickly detects an error in the manufacture. From
these machines the cut tobacco is sent upward, to be subjected to
drying, packing, etc." ... Earlier tobacco cutters were invented by
William Sharp, a Mill Street mechanic. ...
Kimball advanced money and helped to patent a cigarette
making machine invented by Oscar Allison that could produce
1800 feet of cigarettes per minute. Kimball owned a major share of
the machine-making company. The cutters had to be improved and
adjusted to keep up with production. Item #51-5534
Price: $750.00