American
colonists adopted the practice of chewing (and smoking) tobacco from
American Indians. It became widespread in the early-nineteenth
century, provoking Charles Dickens, the well-known English novelist,
to complain about tobacco spitting in
American Notes
(chapter eight), a commentary on his 1842 tour of the United States.
The author ridiculed Washington, D.C., as “the head-quarters of
tobacco-tinctured saliva,” and observed that the “most offensive and
sickening” practice of tobacco spitting was visible in “all the
public places of America…” Signs in hospitals and other public
buildings implored chewers to use spittoons, rather than the floors
or marble columns. In some parts of the country, the filthy
“custom is inseparably mixed up with every meal and morning call,
and with all the transactions of social life.”
Although challenged by a
cigar-smoking craze in the mid-nineteenth century, smokeless
tobacco, in the forms of chaw (also called chew or plug) and snuff,
remained dominant until perfection of the safety match in the
early-twentieth century (since cigars and pipes had to be relit
often). Throughout the nineteenth century, cuspidors or
spittoons were common sights in saloons, businesses, civic
buildings, and homes. On the streets, floors of public
transports (railroads, boats, and streetcars), and certain other
public areas, male chewers expectorated at will, causing a problem
for hoopskirt-wearing women,
as an 1858 letter to
Harper’s Weekly
attested.
Along with other tobacco
products,
Harper’s Weekly
advertised chewing tobacco. To promote P & G. Lorillard’s
Century brand,
a two-column advertisement in the September 7, 1867 issue
announced the daily packing of $100 in the product’s tin foils.
Nearly two years later,
in the July 31, 1869 issue, a smaller ad
headlined the
discontinuation of the marketing tactic on July 1 because Lorillard
had “obtained an extensive and wide-spread sale” of its Century
chewing tobacco, “its merits being so favorably recognized…”
An
article in the April 12, 1873 issue
of Harper’s Weekly
compared the American practice of chewing tobacco to the Southeast
Asian custom of chewing a concoction of ground betel nuts. The
author explicitly identified tobacco chewing as an addiction that
was seldom broken, despite the “moral resolution” on the part of
users to do so. He also categorized it as “a practice that is
positively destroying the foundations of health” and leading to
early death (describing symptoms akin to a stroke).
One reason for the decline
in the popularity of chewing tobacco was the fear that the spitting
the juice was spreading tuberculosis. In 1986, Surgeon General
C. Everett Koop declared that smokeless tobacco was addictive.
Today, scientific studies have associated smokeless tobacco with
cancer of the esophagus, larynx, mouth, and pancreas. It can
also cause gingivitis, dental cavities, and other periodontal
diseases. |
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Harper's Weekly References |
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1)
January 16, 1858, p. 35, c. 2-3
Lounger letter, tobacco spitting and hoop skirts
2)
September 7, 1867, p. 576, c. 3-4
ad, chewing tobacco
3)
July 31, 1869, p. 495, c. 2
ad, chewing tobacco
4)
April 12, 1873, p. 302, c. 1
news item, “The Betel-Nut,” compares chewing tobacco addiction to use
and effect of betel nut |
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Sources Consulted |
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Borio, Gene, “The History of
Tobacco” History Net,
http://www.historian.org/bysubject/tobacco1.htm
Dickens, Charles, “Washington:
The Legislature and the President’s House,” chap. 8 in
American Notes (1842),
http://www.online-literature.com/dickens/americannotes/9/
Slade, John, M.D., “Tobacco
Epidemic: Historical Lessons,”
http://www.health20-20.org/slade.htm
“Southern Tobacco in the Civil
War,”
http://www.civilwarhome.com/tobacco.htm, based on an article
by Orville Vernon Burton and Henry Kammerling in The
Confederacy, a Macmillan Information Now Encyclopedia |
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