Duke Homestead and Tobacco Museum in Durham NC

The Duke Homestead was built in 1852 by Washington Duke, on a 300 acre farm; the Union Army looted it during the Civil War leaving the family with little so they shifted from tobacco farming to tobacco processing, introducing cigarettes in 1881

This is a reconstruction of the first tobacco factory founded by Washington Duke in April 1865; the Duke children all worked here where they manufactured smoking tobacco

In 1839, bright leaf tobacco was discovered by a slave at a farm north of Durham; he fell asleep while watching a curing fire and then tossed charred logs on the dying embers which created a sudden drying heat, resulting in a bright yellow tobacco

Tobacco seeds are very small with about 300,000 in each ounce; the visitor center here features the Tobacco Museum, with exhibits about tobacco farming, processing and the history of tobacco

The Tobacco Museum features the world's largest (284) collection of spittoons (bought from a CT gentleman); this ironstone spittoon was made in England in July 1883

Liggett and Myers (this pack is from 1955) is the world's 4th largest tobacco company and headquartered in Durham; in 1911, a Supreme Court decision found the American Tobacco Co violated the Sherman Antitrust Act so Liggett and Myers was spun off

Cigarette machines were ubiquitous in the middle decades of the 1900s; it wasn't until 1964 that the US Surgeon General said - Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the US to warrant appropriate remedial action

This kitchen was an 1860 addition to Washington Duke's original 1852 house; in 1931 a Duke descendant donated the house to Duke University which gave it to the state of NC in 1974

First published in 1828, Lydia Child's The American Frugal Housewife was a very popular 19th-century manual for homemakers (would Artelia Duke have owned one?); interesting recipes and advice on housekeeping are detailed in no-nonsense prose

Duke founded the American Tobacco Co in 1890 and is best known for the introduction of modern cigarette manufacturing and marketing and his financial gift to Trinity College which became Duke University

The original American Tobacco Company logo (as shown in this early 1900s cast) featured Chief Powhatan; a 1911 Supreme Court ruling divided American Tobacco (ATC) into 4 companies: ATC, Liggett + Myers, Lorillard and R.J. Reynolds

Reynolds moved to Winston-Salem in 1874 to start his own tobacco company eventually becoming the wealthiest person in North Carolina; in 1913, Reynolds developed a great innovation: the packaged cigarette

The American Tobacco Co used this Bag Jack from 1932 until 1977 to manufacture bags of Bull Durham Smoking Tobacco; before the invention of this machine the work would have typically been done by young Black boys

Genuine Durham smoking tobacco tin c. 1910; cigarette smoking is responsible for 480,000+ deaths per year in the US, including 41,000+ deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure

This Liberty Bell replica was made by RJ Reynolds employees and is made of tobacco; it weighs 300+ lbs and the tobacco could have been used to make 180,000 cigarettes

James Duke was an early marketing expert creating consumer demand for his specific brands rather than tobacco in general; on average, smokers die 10 years earlier than nonsmokers

This tobacco curing barn dates from around 1870 and is originally from a farm in northern Durham County; the hand-harvest tobacco leaves were hung here for a week and cured from a stone furnace at 180 degree temperatures

After curing, the tobacco leaves were very dry and brittle; they were brought to the packhouse to be sorted based on their quality (size, color, texture, insect damage, etc)

This is the third tobacco factory (1869) Washington Duke built after rapidly out outgrowing the first two; the Dukes used this factory until 1874 when they moved to a facility in downtown Durham