Most baby boomers fondly recall childhood memories of wearing cigar band rings or storing youthful treasures in cigar boxes with alluring labels on the inside lid. They are a generation who read promotional ads on the backside of cereal boxes, perhaps collected stamps or trading cards, and often selected products off store shelves simply because of eye-catching labels. But few individuals are aware of the overall historical evolution and complexities involved in producing the commercial art from which cigar advertising dominated nearly 90 percent of the stone lithographic industry by 1900.
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The tradition of modern merchandise marketing was written a century ago when cigar makers embraced stone lithography to flamboyantly peddle their products en mass to consumers.
[b]The Discovery of Stone Lithography[/b]
In 1798, after years attempting to find a cheaper printing process than copper plating, German playwright/author Aloise Senefelder discovered a new printing process, using Bavarian limestone from a nearby mine. Unlike most limestone, its hardness was a perfect printing surface once it was cut and polished.
Senefelder's discovery was perfected during the 19th century: in France, the advent of multiple color prints and multiple stones, followed by other printing refinements developed in Germany and the United States, such as three dimensional embossing, stippling, and silver, gold, or bronze embellishments.
Stone lithographic prints, commonly called chromolithographs, became the new medium of advertising art for any business selling consumer goods in the emerging American mass-market economy. They included the parlor prints of Currier and Ives and artists' limited edition prints by artists, but perfection in stone lithography was found in cigar art. It emerged rapidly in the United States as a consequence of three revolutions in the 1870s.
[b]The German Revolution[/b]
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A political revolution erupted in 1871 when Otto von Bismarck united German confederacies into a modern nation state. His new Social Democracy made the government responsible to the people and eliminated most unions. Without their unions, talented lithographers migrated to the United States, introducing printing secrets and advanced printing techniques. New York City was their preferred destination since it developed American capitalism and had access to national and international markets. Cigar entrepreneurs eager to make fortunes were among the first to conscript talented lithographers to produce quality advertising art.
[b]The 1868-1878 Cuban Civil War[/b]
The second political revolution in the 1870s took place in Cuba when patriots attempted to drive out their Spanish overlords. The aborted rebellion, lasting from 1868 to 1878, resulted in a mass exodus of skilled cigar artisans. Some departed for New York City but most went to Key West, (called "Cayo Hueso" by Cubans) 90 miles north of Havana. This tiny island, with less than 500 residents in 1867, was transformed into an appendage of Cuba, and by 1880, it was transformed into the home of the American cigar industry. Thousands of talented cigar artisans attracted northern cigar manufacturers as well as a few from Cuba.
Key West's cigar factories received duty free Cuban tobacco leaf exported by Spain in an effort to create a new source of revenue. By 1880, Cuban tobacco leaf and skilled Key West artisans produced millions of cigars annually, selling a third less than cigars rolled in Cuba, who paid heavy export/import taxes.
New York cigar manufacturers producing cigars had to install expensive humidifiers to keep the tobacco pliable, machines not needed in the warm, humid atmosphere of Key West. In addition, New York's Cuban émigrés lived in over crowded tenement houses and disliked the cold New York winters. Many soon left for Cayo Hueso, which offered employment, adequate housing, and a climate similar to that left behind in Cuba.
[b]Production of Steam Power[/b]
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The third revolution of the 1870s was the application of steam power to drive massive machines. Lithographers could operate powerful offset presses, mass-producing thousands of prints of a single image. Cigar manufacturers could now conscript the most sophisticated lithographers available to create alluring cigar posters, labels, and bands. Cigar sales depended on artistic images, a form of cross-cultural pictographic communication, attracting people of all cultures and linguistic backgrounds.
[b]Alluring Art Sold Cigars[/b]
By creating universally attractive advertising images, stone lithographers associated art as a cultural attainment by purchasing goods. An alluring cigar label was virtually worth a thousand words, and most importantly, sold cigars. An encyclopedic desire for cigar art ensued, influencing advertising art used for all products sold in America's burgeoning markets.
This was an era when cigars were a portable, visible status symbol regardless of an individual's ethnic origins or station in life. They were smoked along the streets, in local bars, or in exclusive clubs. A man's stature, measured by his cigar, was a democratic symbol proudly displayed in public. Cigars topped the list of all items sold in the industrial age. They were purchased by individuals from all walks of life, from naturalized Americans to recently arrived émigrés and entrepreneurial Robber Barons.
By the 1880s, a cornucopia of imagery flowed from the stones of lithographers for cigar manufacturers demanding alluring cigar art imagery. A plethora of embossed and gilded images included idyllic scenes, status symbols, romantic idealism, wealth, female nudity, famous personages, and patriotism, all symbolizing the American Dream to consumers.
[b]The Impact of Cigar Art on Advertising[/b]
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Studying cigar art from the late 19th and early 20th centuries opens a window into the past, allowing an understanding of what was considered ideal and valued by the burgeoning and diverse population of the United States. By 1900, cigar art had perfected advertising propaganda, dominating all printing production in the stone lithographic industry.
Cigar imagery and design was copied by manufacturers of almost every other product sold, from calendars and theatrical billboards to menus, musical sheet covers, cosmetics, household goods, trade cards, and of course, cigars.
[b]Lithographers Unite in the Era of Trusts[/b]
By the 1890s, major businesses established trusts in an effort to eliminate opposition and cut production costs. Competition among lithographic firms was so intense they were forced to offer excellent quality prints at reduced prices if they wished to remain in business, driving many lithographers out of business. By 1892, 34 lithographic firms joined forces, establishing the American Lithographic Trust, following the trend of Standard Oil and other industrial giants. The new lithographic Trust nearly monopolized printing. There were still some formidable companies such as Witch & Schmidt, but American Lithography took over the lion's share of the nation's printing for cigars.
The heyday of stone lithography lasted until 1914, the outbreak of World War I when shipments of Bavarian limestone ended. When the United States entered the war in 1917, printing demands had declined, paper quality for prints deteriorated, and cigar sales slowed as cigarettes gained popularity.
[b]The Decline of Cigars and Stone Lithographic Art[/b]
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In the post war economy of the 1920s, cigar artisans were dying off as cheaper machine-made cigars were introduced. "El Producto's" machine-made cigars still used a Spanish-sounding name, but more common cigar brands were "Hav-A-Tampa," "White Owl," "Dutch Master," and "Call Again."
There was also an historic change in the lithographic industry in the 1920s. Just as their cigar artisan counterparts, talented lithographers became octogenarians whose talented skills were lost to a generation not interested in a dying art. More importantly, newly developed photomechanical printing was far less expensive to produce.
By 1926, only a few stone lithographic firms remained when a new company using photomechanical printing emerged. The Consolidated Lithographic Company, in Karl Place, Long Island inherited a gold mine of lithographic proof book libraries from firms it absorbed, including the American Lithographic Trust. A massive collection of images represented 60 years of accumulated advertising art of over 50 lithographic firms.
Images considered valuable were transferred photo mechanically and sold to manufacturers of household cleansers, cigarettes, and raisins. Many products appearing on today's store shelves have a hidden heritage of cigar art history.
With the end of the Prohibition, stone lithographic images were used for alcohol labels (High Life, Canadian Club) or old images were ground off the stones. The March 1933 edition of Fortune Magazine paid a lasting tribute to the lost art of stone lithography by reproducing 12 memorable images in an article entitled "Atlas and the Nudes." The editor laments that when it comes to beautiful imagery on cigars, "the joy has gone out of it. A [cigar] maker no longer wants the loveliest bosom of Old Castille. He wants a snappy emblem and a name no hick can forget. And it's a different business." Enditem
