TOBACCO AND WINSTON-SALEM, Part One (Cheri)

Mark and I went to see the exhibit "Camel City:  Tobacco & Transformation, 1875-1964" at the Reynolda House Museum & Gardens a couple of weeks ago.

The exhibit will be in place through January 4.

The Reynolda House is an impressive museum.  We keep meaning to see the permanent art exhibits, but have seen so much at temporary exhibits that we don't go beyond that.

This exhibit was a substantial challenge for the curators, because tobacco, particularly the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, was what built Winston-Salem.  How to show the tremendous Company talents and benefits for the community, while being honest about the massive detrimental health effects, disparate treatment of Black American employees, and history of labor woes?

(I guess I should make it clear that "Reynolda House," originally part of a 1,067-acre estate, is the former residence of the R.J. Reynolds family.  I'm not sure how it is owned now.)

R.J. Reynolds bought and created an extraordinary number of tobacco brands:

The information about all the flavor additives in cigarettes was new to me, but not surprising.

The company worked with extremely talented advertisers.  As a perfectionist and artist, I so enjoyed the directions below regarding exact placement of each letter in the layout:

The size of the billboard below, and the 25 years that it hung over Times Square blew me away!

The company targeted marketing to soldiers during World War II:

Hospitals would hand out cigarettes in care packages, many provided by the American Red Cross. AAF pilots and other front line troops were met with
Red Cross girls carrying trays of individual cigarettes.
Those, too, were often Camels.

More Camel cigarettes came in boats from concerned citizens stateside. D
onation cartons of Camels, purchased by organizations,
religious groups, cities, and other charities, were handed out for
free to the boys over there. This often annoyed the military and
​ration boards and clogged the U.S. Post office.
And yet, the Camels kept coming!

(Source:  WWISoldier.com.)

Here is another example of R.J. Reynolds' promotion expertise.

You may know that I grew up Seventh-Day Adventist, and that Adventists heavily promote a healthy lifestyle, avoiding all tobacco products and liquor.  I was aghast when I saw this!

Check out the numbers below, noting the numbers of cigarettes sold in each of the local regions.  I'm not sure what time frame this reflects.

Tobacco brought such wealth to Winston-Salem that by 1931, the city was known as the "town of 100 millionaires."

​There was so much to see, and we attended a panel discussion after seeing the exhibit.  More to come in a few days!