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 Tobacco

   Tobacco was a significant crop from its first discovery in the New World. North Carolina played a secondary role in Colonial America to Virginia and Maryland. But the discovery of the methods for producing bright leaf tobacco in the late 1830s, lead to the state's rise as a major producer of the crop.

   Tobacco factories (pre-1865)




    		    Tobacco was mostly a small farmer product and home manufactured. From a high of 33 million pounds of tobacco in 1860, it took until 1890 to surpass that pre-war total.
   There were numerous small "tobacco factories" in North Carolina prior to the Civil War. These facilities often prepared and packaged chewing tobacco which was preferred, although cigars were beginning to gain in popularity.
   The use of tobacco would undergo a revolution during the 1880s and 1890s — with the creation of mechanized cigarette making and the creation of a tobacco trust that would be broken up in 1911. Tobacco manufacturing grew rapidly in Durham and Winston.  (See tobacco manufacturing history to be added soon)

North Carolina Tobacco Crop
Year Total  Crop
(lbs. millions)		 Burley
(lbs. millions)		 Flue-cured
(lbs. millions)		 Flue-cured NC
Prices (per 100 lbs.)
1840         16.77      
1850         11.98      
1860         32.85      
1870         11.20      
1880         27      
1890         36      
1900       127.50      
1910       144 est.      
1920       423.70+      423.70   $  20.80
1930       586.60        5.40    581.20   $  12.90
1940       523.67        6.83    516.84   $  16.60
1950       875.99      17.85    858.14   $  55.60
1960       858.30      18.43    839.87   $  61.10
1970       815.52      18.58    796.94   $  71.70
1980       761.74      16.97    744.77   $146.30
1990       639.64      18.00    621.64   $168.10
2000       406.50      11.84    394.66   $179.00

 More information and data to come.

 
  1858-1859 Ad in Weekly Standard (Raleigh), above.
 
  1877 Ad in Branson's Business Directory for North Carolina.

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