Hand rollers and other workers in a Richmond cigarette factory 



. . . they must go through a most thorough examination 

 as to character and habits" (and) "they come from the 

 most respected famihes in the city." A few years later a 

 reporter from Harpers Weekly found 900 young women 

 rolhng cigarettes in the same plant and a larger number 

 in the Richmond factory of the Kinney Tobacco Com- 

 pany. 



T 



he role of the macliine 



Rolling cigarettes by hand could not possibly continue 

 to meet the growing consumer demand for the desirable 

 novelty. Cigarette production in the States had been 

 under 20 miUion in 1865; by 1881 it was over 500 million. 

 A major manufacturer offered $75,000 for a practical 

 cigarette-making machine. "Practical" was stressed. 

 There were patented mechanisms for producing ciga- 

 rettes available but they wheezed and stuttered under 

 the strain of use. 



A youthful genius, James Albert Bonsack of Bonsack's 

 Station, a Roanoke County village, registered a cigarette- 



29 



