Primary Source Set

Tobacco, Part 1: Farmers & Workers

Tobacco was one of North Carolina’s most important industries of the 20th century. One of the reasons that it was so powerful was because it employed so many people and generated significant wealth, especially in the eastern half of the state. This part of the Tobacco lesson uses photographs, videos, and oral histories to illustrate the lives of tobacco farmers, sharecroppers, buyers, and factory workers.

“Whatever you were doing, your job, your existence, your livelihood was connected some way with the tobacco industry, directly or indirectly.”

— James P. Morgan, former American Tobacco Company employee

Time Period

1940s-1980s

Grade Level

8 – 12

Typed sections of an oral history. There's a black-and-white portrait of a grandmother and her grandchild sitting on the porch.

Transcript

Mrs. Dora Miller I was born January 27, 1906 in Apex, North Carolina. I moved to Durham in January, 1925 and went to work at Liggett & Myers. When I first went to work (at Liggett & Myers), I worked on the fourth floor with the "butting machines"; they cut the butts off the tobacco on the conveyor belt. (Another) lady cut the butts off at that time but later I was promoted to cutting butts myself. I always pulled up on the job anywhere I worked. I always happened to be lucky enough to get higher pay. At that time we wasn't making but twenty cents an hour. We didn't get anymore than that until 1933 after Roosevelt. Roosevelt came in and I got a promotion to twenty-five cents an hour. We worked from eight to nine hours a day and five hours on Saturday. After Roosevelt, they cut the hours back to eight hours and raised our pay. The union started in 1934 and the first union was set up by myself and an old man named Mr. Atwater who belonged to St. Mark's Church. Him and myself wrote up people for the union. This was just blacks, 'cause the white people had their own union. All the black tobacco workers was in together in the beginning. We started on a Saturday, writing up people for the union; later in the day, we called in another lady to help us out. She was named Daisy Jones and she helped us write people up for the union at the old Wonderland Theatre. That's where we sat in fold-up chairs all day long. (The union) paid us twenty-five cents an hour to write people up. After being in the union for a while, I was elected as a shop steward which is one of the highest (offices). (I went) to the main office (of the factory) to ask for agreements for the whole entire union. I have been to Richmond, Virginia; Rochester, New York; Wilson; Williamston; Danville, Virginia; all those different places. At that time the union was paying for it and we was making twenty-five dollars a day, which was money. They gave us that and transportation. We had some tight foremen (in the factory). My first foreman was (called) "One-eye" because he had but one eye. He cussed you. He'd get on top of the machine and look down and cuss everybody if it wasn't going like he wanted it to. There was quite a lot of prejudice when we first went (to the factory) and the union pulled it out, it pulled it out. When I became a (union) committeeman, they seemed to (show me) a little inferiority, me being a woman, but I stood up. I've always been a person to stand up and I stood up for my rights. They seen I meant what I said and they had to recognize me. They recognized me as "Mrs. Jones." I was a Jones then. At that time it was a rare thing for a white man to say, but they did because they knew I was the only woman (union official) in the plant and they did respect me that much. I worked at Liggett & Myers around thirty-eight years. They terminated the department that I worked in. I draw a little something every month but I don't draw the full retirement pay. Some of the people that wasn't eliminated, they draw full pay. Dora Miller and Asia Dee Lloyd, granddaughter

Dora Miller's story from "Working in Tobacco"

Dora Miller was one of the employees of Liggett & Myers, which was owned by the Duke family’s American Tobacco Company. By her telling, she was one of the first people to help unionize Black employees (white employees had a separate union). Her story comes from a set of recorded histories of several tobacco workers from Durham. The collection was assembled in 1988 at North Carolina Central University.

Contributed to DigitalNC by North Carolina Humanities Council

View Original View Transcript

Durham, N.C. (Durham County)

Tobacco, Part 1: Farmers & Workers

Print/Download

Background

For decades, tobacco has been one of the most important products in North Carolina’s economy and culture. This was especially true in the century between 1880 and 1980, when several major tobacco companies formed the base of North Carolina’s economy. Tobacco generated so much money in the state that it touched the lives of every North Carolinian, either directly or indirectly, through their jobs, their schools, and the cities they lived in.

Tobacco is a plant that is used to make cigarettes, cigars, dip, and other products (usually for smoking). Nicotine is a chemical in tobacco leaves that can make a tobacco user feel relaxed, but it is also highly addictive. Tobacco products often lead to several grave health consequences, including cancer, heart disease, strokes, and lung disease, plus increased risk for several other illnesses. Even though smoking was known to be dangerous in the 1950s, tobacco companies used marketing and advertising to distort public perception and continue their business for decades longer. It was especially difficult for North Carolinians to condemn the tobacco industry, even in the 1980s and ‘90s, because of the tremendous influence it had in the state. Since then, the decline of the tobacco industry has led to population and job decreases, particularly in the eastern part of the state. This major shift in North Carolina’s economy led to some of the prominent agricultural industries of today, including hog, chicken, and soybean farming.

This influence of tobacco extended to the culture of North Carolina as well. Generations of farmers developed traditions around the planting, harvesting, drying, and auctioning of tobacco plants. Tobacco companies brought new technology into their factories, and workers in those factories advanced civil rights and labor protections. Cigarette advertisements shaped the marketing industry, even appearing in high school and college newspapers. Money from tobacco was used to build up rural communities, cities, and schools. Some of the biggest names in tobacco are still recognizable today, including the Duke family in Durham (owners of the American Tobacco Company), William T. Blackwell and Julian S. Carr (two partners of Bull Durham tobacco), and Richard J. Reynolds of Winston-Salem (proprietor of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company).

Discussion Questions

  1. Think about the groups of people who worked in the tobacco industry: farmers, factory workers, and company owners. What interests and opinions did they share? In what ways did they differ?

  2. At the end of Carolina Bright, Tommy Clemment talks about the way tobacco farming has changed over his lifetime. What has changed? What traditions have stayed the same? Which parts of the farming process seem the hardest?

  3. Jean Pittman and Dora Miller describe some of the hardships of working on tobacco farms and in factories, particularly for Black workers. What are some of the ways workers have responded to those challenges?

  4. Children appear in several of these photos and accounts, including the baby on the back of the farmer’s tractor, the child drying tobacco leaves, and Jean Pittman’s story. Why do you think children are so visible in these examples? How does this affect your understanding of the statement that everyone was connected to tobacco?

  5. Tobacco brought a lot of wealth, jobs, and development to North Carolina, but it also sold products that were dangerous to people’s health. Do you think the influence of tobacco in the state was overall positive, negative, or some of both? Why?

This primary source set was compiled by Sophie Hollis.

Updated October 2023