A social and cultural history of smoking...
The age of the cigarette. Mass production and mass appeal

Cigarettes were originally sold as an expensive handmade luxury item for the urban elites of Europe. However, cigarette manufacture was revolutionized by the introduction of a rolling machine called the Bonsack machine, which was patented by American James Bonsack in the United States in 1880.

The machine was soon put into use by the American industrialist James Buchanan Duke, who founded the American Tobacco Company (ATC) in 1890. Inexpensive mass-produced cigarettes, promoted by Duke's aggressive marketing methods and advertising, gradually led to a decline in pipe-smoking and tobacco-chewing habits in the United States. In Britain the manufacturer Henry Wills began using the machine in Bristol in 1883, and this enabled him to dominate the cigarette trade within just a few years. Then, in 1901, Duke attempted to enter the British market. The subsequent "tobacco war" resulted in a standoff as the British manufacturers united within the Imperial Tobacco Company. An agreement in 1902 allowed both sides to claim a victory.

Duke retreated to the United States, and they formed the British-American Tobacco Company (BAT) to market and sell their products to the rest of the world, especially India, China, and the British dominions. Although other American companies entered the global market following the breakup of the ATC, BAT continued to meet much success. In 1999 the company produced more than 800 billion cigarettes per year, which made it the world's third largest tobacco company (just behind the Philip Morris USA and Philip Morris International companies, together ranking second, and the China National Tobacco Corporation, ranking first).

The success of the cigarette was due not only to the business strategies of the large firms but also to the rapid adoption by urban male youths of the relatively inexpensive and easy-to-smoke lighter flue-cured Virginia tobacco. In the 1890s and 1900s, most territorial and federal states began banning the sale of tobacco to minors. The legislation, however, was largely ineffective, and World War I quickly put an end to the critique of young men's cigarette smoking. In the trenches cigarettes were easier to smoke than pipes, and tobacco companies, the military, governments, and newspapers organized a constant supply of cigarettes to the troops-an official recognition of the importance of tobacco in offering immediate relief from physical and psychological stress. Certain companies did extraordinarily well from the war: Imperial's Players and Woodbine brands in Britain and, more spectacularly, R.J. Reynolds's Camel in the United States. Introduced only in 1913, Camel had reached sales of 20 billion cigarettes by 1920, following a government supply order and a successful marketing campaign. The war, therefore, transformed smoking habits. As early as 1920, more than 50 percent of the tobacco consumed in Britain was in the form of cigarettes. A less-urban U.S. population lagged behind, but a similar story in World War II saw cigarettes achieve more than 50 percent of all tobacco sales in 1941. Several other industrial countries matched this trend.

The first half of the 20th century was the golden age of the cigarette. In 1950 around half of the population of industrialized countries smoked, though that figure hides the fact that in countries such as the United Kingdom up to 80 percent of adult men were regular smokers. Smoking was an acceptable form of social behaviour in all areas of life-at work, in the home, in bars, and at the cinema-and advertisers were keen to show the full range of leisure activities made complete only through the addition of a cigarette. Smoking cigarettes was popular across all social classes and increasingly among women, once associations of smoking with deviant sexuality began to fade in the 1920s. Most important, the cigarette habit was legitimated, celebrated, and glamourized on the Hollywood screen and transported to the rest of the world. Movie stars such as Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, Spencer Tracy, Gary Cooper, and especially Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Marlene Dietrich raised the image of the cigarette to that of the iconic, ensuring it would never lose its sophisticated and loftily independent connotations.

Tobacco as a painkiller in the Native Americans' cultures

Although the origin of tobacco use in Native American culture is uncertain, tobacco clearly played a far more ceremonial and structured role than it would come to play in Europe and the modern world.

A strong, dark, high-nicotine tobacco was crucial to the performance of shamanistic rituals and social ceremonies. Usually smoked but also chewed, drunk, taken as snuff, and even given as an enema, tobacco was seen by Native Americans as a means for providing communication with the supernatural world through the medium of the shaman, for either medicinal or spiritual purposes. Among other medical applications, tobacco was used as a cure for toothache by the Iroquois, as a cure for earache by the Indians of central Mexico, as a painkiller by the Cherokee, and as an antiseptic in Guatemala.

Beyond such practical functions, tobacco was also often exchanged as a gift, helping to forge social connections and establish community hierarchies. In many groups tobacco was given as an offering to the gods, and in some groups, in particular among the Maya, tobacco was itself deified as a divine plant. Tobacco was also linked to the fertility both of the land and of women, and it was used in initiation ceremonies for boys entering manhood. Most famously, tobacco was used in the calumet ritual, when agreements and obligations would be made binding with the passing of the ritual pipe (the calumet, or sacred pipe).

Tobacco was thus central to Native American culture, be it with the cigar in the South or the pipe in the North, and its properties were known from Canada to Argentina and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. So important was it that some native groups, such as the Blackfoot and the Crow, cultivated no other crop.

Smoke-free advocates may now be at your door

Fresh from their success winning a statewide smoking ban in bars and restaurants, Minnesota's anti-smoking advocates are ready to zero in on where you live.

One anti-smoking group will kick-start a campaign this week to encourage landlords to outlaw smoking in their buildings. While the program would be purely voluntary for now, some communities might follow two California cities by considering broader ordinances that would apply to multi-unit dwellings.

Smoke-free groups are also considering pushes to restrict drivers who smoke with kids in their cars, park users who smoke and even cigarette-dangling youth-sport coaches. Still, condos and apartments appear to be the next battleground in the state's smoking wars.

It's part of a national trend aimed at snuffing out those who light up. Chicago can now fine people up to $500 for smoking within 15 feet of beaches and playgrounds. Albuquerque nixed smoking at the zoo. Davis County, Utah, has extended its ban to golf courses and cemeteries.

Outdoor smoking bans grow The number of cities and counties that prohibit smoking in outdoor areas such as parks, stadiums and outdoor cafes has jumped from 30 in 1999 to 1,124 today, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation.

In Minnesota, groups still have many millions of dollars from their tobacco settlement warchests to combat the harm of tobacco and secondhand smoke - and many ideas about how to do it.

The program will focus on apartment buildings in the seven-county metro area and seeks to educate landlords about the benefits of adopting smoke-free policies.

Big Brother or deterrent?

While the statewide law prohibits smoking in common areas of apartment buildings, there is no provision regarding individual apartment units. Earlier this year, two California cities - Belmont and Temecula - passed ordinances for smoke-free rental unit housing.

Some local smokers interviewed on Friday thought government was overstepping its bounds by shifting bans inside the confines of their homes. Others shrugged and said they expect the smoke-free screw will only be tightened.

"It's ridiculously Big Brother to go and tell me what I can and can't do in my own home," said Brian Van Sickle, 32, of Minneapolis.

"I can see not allowing smoking in cars with kids, but going into your own space if the landlord doesn't mind? That's too far," said Barb Jensen, another Minneapolis renter.

Electrician Mike Riggs of Becker, who was taking a cigarette break while helping build a 200-unit apartment building in Minneapolis, said fewer fires might be ignited by smokers falling asleep. "But I don't see smoke drifting through an inch-and-a-half of drywall," he said.