The
majority of the cartoons in
Harper’s Weekly
showing boys (never girls) smoking were concentrated in the
journal’s first three years of publication (1857-1859). Those
and most of the later cartoons presented middle- or upper-class boys
smoking in imitation of men, as a sign of maturity and
sophistication; or, depicted street urchins whose poverty forced
them prematurely into the adult role of providing for themselves.
A
cartoon from the November 21, 1857 issue
looked at how the economic panic of 1857 adversely affected the
ability of two boys of the street from finding adequate cigar stubs.
Through the 1870s, the underage smokers’ methods of choice were
considered to be the same as those of adult men: the cigar or
pipe. The fact that boys did smoke, and that tobacco was
widely available to them, was taken for granted. An
early cartoon from the June 6, 1857 issue
encapsulated the themes of 1) the commonness of boys smoking; 2)
their mimicry of mature manhood; and 3) their (perceived) preference
for cigars or pipes.
In a discussion of the continuing debate over the pros and cons of
tobacco, the author of the “Home
and Foreign Gossip”
column in the October 12, 1872 issue conceded that “Not even the
frequent sight of cigar or pipe in the mouth of boys not yet in
their teens can suggest anything new…” Such a resigned
attitude differed from the sharp criticism leveled a decade later by
the editor of
Harper’s Weekly,
George William Curtis, against the ease with which cigarettes
allowed boys to begin smoking. In his editorial of September
9, 1882, “Our
Fortunate Boys,”
Curtis wrote how twenty years before boys took up smoking “with the
greatest difficulty” because they had to adapt to the strong tobacco
in cigars and pipes. In contrast, for underage smokers in
1882, “[t]he path of smoking is made plain and easy by means of the
cheap and gentle cigarette.” The editor suggested
sarcastically that because whiskey (like strong tobacco) was
distasteful at first, the development of “whiskeyettes” might ease
acquisition of the drinking habit.
Cigarettes had been
hand-rolled at first, but they began to be manufactured in the
United States in 1864. They were more convenient than pipes
and cigars, which had to be relit often. Cigarettes were also
cheaper, initially being sold individually, two cigarettes for a
penny, which meant that any lad with a bit of change could buy them.
The price was reduced further in the mid-1870s when Lewis Ginter, of
the Allen & Ginter tobacco-manufacturing firm in Richmond, Virginia,
substituted domestic tobacco for the more expensive foreign type
previously used in cigarettes. In 1875, John Allen, Ginter’s
partner, developed the cigarette packet, which was so innovative
that it was displayed the next year at the U.S. Centennial
Exhibition in Philadelphia. The packs allowed easier branding
of cigarettes, so numerous imitators of Ginter & Allen’s “Richmond
Gems” quickly entered the market.
Pieces of cardboard were
soon placed in the soft paper packs to prevent product damage.
Lewis Ginter is credited with the marketing ploy of placing cards in
the packs with pictures of baseball players, boxers, Civil War
heroes, and other public figures popular with boys (and pictures of
actresses for men, as well). Bull Durham, the leading
cigarette brand of the period, included coupons for dime novels,
which were read enthusiastically by children. The application
in the 1880s of mass production methods to cigarette manufacturing
cut costs further and aided wider distribution. Cigarette
manufacturers also sometimes gave free samples to children and
teens. In 1891, officials at a Southern military prep school
thanked the American Tobacco Company for its donation of free
cigarettes to the cadets. However, a similar gift in 1910 from
a cigarette company in California to Sacramento households provoked
parental objections. |