“Tobaccoland USA” is a newsreel style film that was commissioned by the Liggett & Myers Tobacco & Co, the company behind Chesterfield Cigarettes, and produced by the March of Time in 1939. The film is set predominantly in Durham, North Carolina - the heart of Tobaccoland - follows the various stages of producing Chesterfields from growing and harvesting to manufacturing and export. The film specifically highlights the role of the Ellis’, a tobacco farming family, as they go from the initial seed bed preparation to their end of harvest celebration.
How times have change when it comes to tobacco
ReplyDeleteI'm not a smoker but it's yet another example of do-gooders gone wild.
ReplyDeleteI graduated HS in 79 and grew up in a tobacco producing area. As a teen I picked tobacco and worked in the tobacco market for summer jobs.
ReplyDeleteI can remember deciding that I was going to join the Army while chopping tobacco in a field in Kentucky in 1988 or 1989. The Army was definitely easier work than farming.
DeleteWe're probably neighbors. The small city I'm in would not be here if not for the tow-bakky business and many associated support businesses.
DeleteTough work.
I lived in Wayne County, Kentucky from 1984 to 1990. I went off to the Army and my family moved back home to East Tennessee. Kentucky is a beautiful state, we enjoyed our time there.
DeleteWhen I started smoking in my 20s, I smoked the UNFILTERED Chesterfield shorts. Mild, delicious, and the perfect companion to a well-built cocktail. Sigh. Those days are gone forever.
ReplyDeleteIn my neck of the woods we called those things Chesterfuckers.
DeleteYeah. I liked Lucky Strike. Do any of y'all remember Bull Durham? It was about 10 cents for a cloth pack of tobacco along with some rolling papers. Tasted dang good. I used to share that when locked up in Bexar County Jail.
DeleteMy grandpa smoked Camel non filtered. And drank whisky everyday until he died at 88 years old. He enjoyed life. I still smoke and drink myself. Hope I can make it a few more years. If not oh well.
lol - I remember my boss' son from around 1985. His son didn't smoke or drink. He was a fitness fanatic. He dropped dead while jogging at 33 years old from an aneurysm. I decided then and there I'll enjoy my life and drop dead when it's my time. At least I haven't had the jab. And about 90% of the people in my area, near Ft. Hood, said screw the jab.
Scuzzy, I sure do remember Bull Durham in the draw string bag and papers. I got the bag and papers the same place you did.
DeleteThanks for posting that Ken! I grew up on a tobacco farm in Maryland and the film brought back many memories.
ReplyDeleteWe handled ours a little differently from field to barn, due to Maryland tobacco being harvested, hung and cured on the whole stalk. We would bend over a plant and cut it off at ground level, let it wilt down a little then spear it. The spear was a sharp metal cone that fit the end of a "tobacco stick" and was slipped on the 1-1/4" x 1-1/4" x 4-1/2 foot tobacco stick long enough to thread a half-dozen stalks on for hanging. I still have a few tobacco sticks from the old farm. The speared tobacco would stand in the field for a couple hours, wilting further (and breaking less) and we'd go around with a wagon to pick it up and take it to the barn.
The barns were very much like what was shown, but greater vertical spaces to accommodate the whole stalks. The sticky tobacco picked up sand in the field, much of which fell off as we were hanging it, burning your eyes, irritating your skin and getting in your hair. The senior men would be all the way at the top, and never got sand dropped on them. As you go lower in the barn, you get more sand on you and the younger workers usually got it off the wagon and started passing it up, thus getting the worse of the fallout.
It would hang and cure in the barn, then the seniors would strip the leaves from the stalk, sort by grade and bundle them up during the cold damp months. We hauled bales to auction in Upper Marlboro, MD in the early spring. I don't know who bought them, but was told most of ours went into cigarettes with a few of the best leaves going to cigar wrappers.
Ed
I've never worked tobacco, but from what I've seen that's the way it's done around here too. The tobacco here is air cured, but in the counties to the west it's smoke cured.
DeleteLived in NC 1976-2018, in W-S 99-09. Good freinds with the Tate family (Josh & Zach) , RJ Reynolds great-grandsons. You have no idea how much $$$$ is there.
ReplyDeleteHey, bring in the whole Greensboro/High Point/W-S & the Hickory/Lenoir/Morganton textile & furniture $$$.
It makes ATL look poor.
I started smoking Chesterfield in the fifties. Been smoking since I was six or seven. Yes, inhaling. Father had a bar and sold cigarettes, no machine. Lots of older kids liked me cuz I could steal all I wanted. Same with booze pre-teen. In the Corp they were in CRats. We called them ChestyPullers.
ReplyDeleteThe smell of curing tobacco brings back childhood hood memories of camping at the barn to make sure the fire was steady! Good times! But priming tobacco was a back breaker!
ReplyDeletePilfered my first Chesterfield from my grandmother at the age of 8. Always enjoyed her coming to our house. She died when I was 12, complications from MS. My smoking was reduced to Camel shorts, non filters from Dad's pack or Phillip Morris unfiltered from my Mom. They're all gone, still excellent memories.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in Durham in the 60's and 70's when the factories were still operating. Driving through the part of town where the factories were, the smell of tobacco leaf filled the air. I started smoking when I turned 16 and remember paying 28 cents per pack. When prices starting climbing, I swore I would quit when they hit $1/pack. Well, I did finally quit when they got to around $4-5/pack. The place where you saw the aerial views of the storage warehouses in the film is now a large apartment complex and a Costco. The old factories (Liggett and Myers and American Tobacco) have mostly been turned into shopping areas and condos now. Times sure change.
ReplyDelete