c 



igarettes get their start 



The only cigarettes in the U.S. market prior to the 

 Civil War were manufactured in Cuba from mild Ha- 

 vana leaf, with some minor cigarette importation from 

 England. Around the close of the War, about 20 milhon 

 cigarettes were manufactured in New York City. 



F. S. Kinney was one of the first firms to engage in 

 cigarette manufacture. In 1869, the company imported 

 craftsmen from Europe to instruct women employees 

 in the art of hand rolling cigarettes. The Kinney firm 

 expanded rapidly and in 1877 opened storehouses in 

 Danville, Virginia. Due to the financial panic of 1873, 

 imported cigarettes began to lose favor and were vir- 

 tually driven from the U.S. market, thus serving to 

 further bolster the security of the American cigarette 

 manufacturers. 



By 1880, cigarettes were big business. Cigarette sales 

 in units amounted to 400 million. New York-Jersey City, 

 Rochester, Baltimore and Richmond accounted for 

 about 75 percent of total U.S. cigarette manufacture at 

 the time. Cigarettes, though, were still more or less a 

 novelty item. The major manufacturers, Kimball in 

 Rochester, Allen and Ginter of Richmond, Marburg 

 and Feigner in Baltimore, and Kinney and Goodwin 

 in New York, produced 44 of the 94 important brands. 

 Typically, they used foreign and exotic names. Although 

 these domestic cigarettes were very inexpensive, the 

 manufacturing process remained time consuming and 

 cumbersome. 



The census of 1880 credited New York City with 

 $4,320,972 in manufactured tobacco— or eight percent 

 of the national total. Cigars and cigarettes, then hand- 

 rolled, accounted for $18,347,108 or nearly 30 percent 

 of the national output. The city listed 17 tobacco manu- 

 facturing plants and 761 cigar makers. 



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