Duke Homestead and the American Tobacco Company

By Jennifer Dawn Farley

Shaped by the Duke family s influence and the production of bright leaf tobacco, Durham, North Carolina, over time, has transformed from the Bull City to the City of Medicine. Duke Homestead and the American Tobacco Company showcases the effect of both tobacco and the Duke family in Durham. The Duke family s fortunes grew alongside those of the city as they rose from tobacco farmers to founders of the American Tobacco Company and influential philanthropists. Duke University, Duke Hospital, and Duke Energy as well as local churches, orphanages, textile mills, banks, and railroads can all trace their roots to the Duke family. The American Tobacco Company was the largest tobacco manufacturer in the world as well as one of the 12 founding members of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. From its founding in 1890, the American Tobacco Company was a major employer in the area, bringing income and a higher quality of life to those employed there, regardless of race or gender.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Aug 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781439643839

Jennifer Dawn Farley

Author Jennifer Dawn Farley manages Duke Homestead State Historic Site in Durham, North Carolina, and has worked with the North Carolina Division of State Historic Sites since 1998. With degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, Farley's research focus includes the history of Durham and the Duke family.

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ONE

’TWAS AN ACCIDENT

In the 1800s, farmers in central North Carolina were looking for a more profitable type of tobacco than what was currently in production. As part of this search, farmers shifted from curing leaves over pit-fires in barns to heating the barns with flues and furnaces. Upon adoption of the flue system, farmers occasionally found that their newly cured leaves were bright yellow rather than the usual brown color. Farmers and manufacturers quickly discovered that these anomalous leaves held a sweeter flavor than the conventional tobacco. The race was on to discover a reliable curing method for bright leaf tobacco.

In 1839, Stephen Slade, an enslaved blacksmith on Abisha Slade’s farm, was curing tobacco over pit-fires when he fell asleep and the fires began to extinguish. Upon waking and seeing the fires, Stephen ran to his blacksmith forge, collected some charcoal, and threw it onto the dying fires. Years later, in 1886, Stephen recounted his story for the Pittsylvania Tribune. To tell the truth about it, ’twas a accident, he said. I commenced to cure it and it commenced to git yallow . . . it looked so purty. It took another 17 years for the Slades to recreate Stephen’s success and have the Slade method used throughout the region.

OPPOSITE: A farmer stands in his tobacco field around 1940. (Courtesy North Carolina Collection, Durham County Library.)

Early each year, farmers start the tobacco crop by breaking the land and running rows in preparation for the tobacco plants. Over the years, methods of preparing the field have varied. Until the 1930s, many farmers preferred planting the seedlings in hills in the field. They created the hills by running rows intersecting each other. After 1930, many began to plant their tobacco in rows instead of hills. In the 1910s and 1920s, farmers started planting their tobacco closer together in order to produce finer-textured leaves, a condition preferred by cigarette manufacturers. Before the advent of tractors, farmers did this work with a mule and a plow. bright leaf tobacco thrives in central North Carolina’s grey soil, which consists of six inches of sandy topsoil with red clay underneath. (Courtesy North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library.)

Farmers first started bright leaf tobacco seeds in seedbeds before transplanting the seedlings into the fields a few weeks later. Before the advent of chemical herbicides, farmers burned their seedbeds prior to planting in order to kill pests and prevent the growth of weeds. If necessary, farmers then amended the soil with horse manure, or, in later years, with commercial fertilizers. In order to broadcast the seed in the seedbed, farmers mixed the seeds with ashes or sand to ensure that the seeds spread uniformly. A tablespoonful of seed sprouted approximately 10,000 plants. Farmers spread this seed mixture by hand, after which they raked the soil. After tamping the soil, a layer of composted horse manure was spread over the seeds to finish the process. (Courtesy Duke Homestead State Historic Site, Division of State Historic Sites and Properties, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.)

Farmers planted their seedbeds in early spring. After planting the seeds, they covered the seedbeds with straw, fine brush, or cheesecloth to protect the delicate seedlings from pests and early spring weather. Prior to the use of a cloth covering, one of the greatest problems faced by tobacco farmers was the flea beetle, or common fly. By 1890, a solution had been discovered: boxing in the seedbeds and covering them with cloth. As J.B. Killebrew wrote in Tobacco Leaf in 1897, Nothing that has ever been invented or devised has effected so much for the tobacco grower, at such small cost, as a canvas covering for the seed bed. By the beginning of May, the tobacco seedlings were about six inches tall and ready to be transplanted into the fields. (Courtesy North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library.)

By the 1990s, most tobacco farmers favored greenhouses over seedbeds, as they allowed more control over environmental conditions, reduced labor, and produced more uniform seedlings. Here, farmer Roy Younger places trays in the greenhouse in 2001. (Courtesy Jesse Andrews Photograph Collection, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University.)

Today, tobacco farmers grow their seedlings using hydroponics. They plant seeds in a growth medium in Styrofoam pallets that float on water. Here, Terry Moore holds up a tray of seedlings ready for planting in 2000. (Courtesy Jesse Andrews Photograph Collection, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University.)

By early May, farmers were ready to transplant the seedlings into the field. In the earliest method of tobacco transplanting, farmers used a planting peg. They typically made this peg from the heart of a pine tree stump and shaped it to be approximately nine inches long and two inches in diameter, with one end whittled down to a point. As seen here, a farmer first walked down the rows dropping seedlings at the appropriate spacing. Next, farmers set the plants in the soil by pushing the root ball into the ground with the planting peg. Another person followed behind the transplanters watering the seedlings as they were transplanted. Some seedlings did not survive transplanting, in which case this process was repeated. (Courtesy College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering Records, 1928–2008, Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries.)

The handheld transplanter was an early planting innovation. It consisted of two metal tubes joined together lengthwise. The entire unit had a handle and a trigger at one end and