JLhe change in industry pattern 



As the tobacco industry in America became concen- 

 trated in fewer, bigger and more efficient companies, as 

 expensive new machinery became an essential of plant 

 equipment for mass production, and as advertising be- 

 gan to assume great importance in brand promotion, 

 many manufacturers sold out or closed shop. The swol- 

 len catalog of brand names became smaller year by 

 year as labels were retired to company files and the 

 archives of the Patent Ofiice. 



When World War I began, the production of tax-paid 

 cigarettes in the States was well past the 16 billion mark. 

 Virginia's factories supplied a considerable share of this 

 total. The industry was fairly standardized by then. Its 

 commercial pattern, very much as it is today, became 

 soundly established in the immediate post-war period. 



Throughout the early period of America, Virginia was 

 the cornucopia of tobacco production. After the Com- 

 monwealth had been well established the horn of plenty 

 took on a new, dynamic aspect, an essential adaptation 

 in the mechanical age. Virginia remained a forerunner 

 and, in a broadened field, led the way to the large-scale 

 manufacturing of the 20th century. 



In 1962 the first of America's great industries will com- 

 memorate a continuity of 350 years. The development 

 of the tobacco industry in that long period cannot be 

 separated from the history of Virginia. The contribution 

 of the Old Dominion, as English colony and as a State 

 of the Union, has been of enormous consequence and 

 will remain unique. 



33 



