From
the colonial period through the early decades of the nineteenth
century, tobacco use among American women, usually in the form of
snuff or pipe smoking, was not uncommon. Instances of women
smoking in their homes or on their doorsteps were routinely recorded
in the court proceedings of colonial New England. One observer
of the colonial scene remarked that American women “smoke in bed,
smoke as they knead their bread, smoke whilst they’re cooking.”
In 1686, a French traveler noted women in Maryland and Virginia
smoked in public, even in church. The tobacco habit among
women was still pervasive in the early-nineteenth century. A
Quaker traveling in western New York State in 1826 complained about
the “tobacco plague” among women, who “sit smoking their pipes by
the half dozen without the least attempt to conceal it, or the least
apparent sense of its indelicacy.”
With the tobacco crop centered
in the South, some evidence suggests that Southern women continued
using the product after the practice had waned among women in the
North. Three First Ladies from the South used tobacco:
Dolley Madison, wife of President James Madison (1809-1817),
preferred snuff, but sometimes smoked a pipe, while Rachel Jackson,
wife of President Andrew Jackson (1829-1837), and Margaret Taylor,
wife of President Zachary Taylor (1849-1850), were frequent pipe
smokers.
In the October 29, 1864
issue of
Harper’s Weekly,
the author of an
illustrated article on Civil War refugees
from Virginia observed critically, “All the women smoked, and common
clay pipes were to be seen sticking out of lips far too pretty for
such occupation.” Since the habit was no longer common in the
North, he assured his readers that the corresponding illustration of
pipe-smoking women was not “a matter of fancy.” The same
phenomenon appeared decades later in an illustration for a short
story in the January 29, 1881 issue of
Harper’s Weekly.
Set in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee, an image for “Jack
and the Mountain Pink,”
written by Katherine McDowell (under the pseudonym, Sherwood
Bonner), depicted an old woman of rural Appalachia casually smoking
a pipe on her doorstep.
Certainly by the late
1860s, pipe smoking among the middle and upper classes in the North
had become associated with men. A
cartoon from the February 23, 1867
issue of Harper’s Weekly
presented two sisters who became ill after smoking their brother’s
pipe tobacco. The practice of pipe smoking continued, however,
among working class and immigrant women in the urban North. An
item in the “Home
and Foreign Gossip”
column of the June 14, 1873 issue remarked on elderly female street
vendors who insisted on smoking their pipes in the new smoking cars
of the Third Avenue train. A few months later, in the
September 27 issue,
a cartoon addresses the same topic.
In “A New Era in City Travel,” a poor Irish-American laundress
expressed gratitude for the smoking cars, while the clothes of her
upper-class clients absorbed the bad odor from the pipe she smoked.
Taking snuff (inhaling
powered tobacco through the nostrils) had been popular with women
and men in the eighteenth century, but waned in usage by both sexes
throughout the nineteenth. That there were still some women
who took snuff as late as the third quarter of the century, though,
is suggested by two humorous poems in
Harper’s Weekly.
The first verse, from 1859,
explained why the male speaker was giving up his disgusting tobacco
habit. Near the end, he told lady “snuffers” to look elsewhere
“for your fellow-puffers.”
In the second, from the September 28, 1867 issue,
a woman gave six reasons for using snuff. Identified as “Mrs.
H. More,” she was probably Hannah More (1745-1833), the late English
essayist, but the inclusion of the light verse hinted that the
subject of women snuff-users was still of some relevance. |
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Harper's Weekly References |
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1)
October 29, 1864, p. 700-701, c. 4
“Refugees at City Point,” pipe smoking among Civil War refugees from
Virginia, illustration on p. 7012)
January 29, 1881, p. 76, c. 1-2
literary illustration, rural (Cumberland Mt.) woman smoking a pipe on
her doorstep, “Jack and the Mountain Pink,” by Sherwood Bonner (nom de
plume of Katherine McDowell)
3)
February 23, 1867, p. 128, c. 1-3
cartoon, “A Quiet Smoke,” sisters are sick after smoking their brother’s
pipe tobacco
4)
June 14, 1873, p. 503, c. 1
item in “Home and Foreign Gossip” column, pipe smoking female food
vendors
5)
September 27, 1873, p. S864, c. 3-4
cartoon, “A New Era in City Travel,” Irish-American laundress in smoking
car of city train
6)
July 9, 1859, p. 443, c. 3
verse, “Tobacco and I,” refers to women using snuff
7)
September 28, 1867, p. 619, c. 3
verse, “You Say Six Reasons Are Enough,” women gives six reasons hwy she
uses snuff |
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Sources Consulted |
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Tate, Cassandra, Cigarette
Wars: The Triumph of the Little White Slaver (NY:
Oxford UP, 1999) |
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