Political Cigar Boxes
A National Cigar Museum Exclusive
© Tony Hyman
Anyone who watches television can see that modern election campaigns have degenerated into a series of evasive statements, vague promises, and mudslinging commercials. It’s difficult for today’s voters to comprehend that nineteenth-century elections were events filled with passion and intellectual debate, with the entire citizenry adequately informed and taking sides in public forums — not sanitized town meetings with pre-approved questions asked of carefully groomed candidates. A century ago, elections were grand public affairs — band concerts, parades, handbills, posters, banners, saloon arguments, a ham from the ward heeler, and cigars. Always cigars. From the smoke-filled rooms of Tammany Hall to the muddy, unpaved streets of rural America, cigars were part of every political confrontation.
The first cigar smoking President appears to have been Zachary Taylor, elected in 1848 before cigars had totally taken hold of American society. Taylor had become famous as a result of his exploits in the war with Mexico, a cigar-smoking country, home to a giant government run cigar factory with nearly 3,000 rollers. It’s not recorded, but quite likely, Mexico is where Taylor picked up the habit. Though not yet ubiquitous, cigars were surprisingly available, and not only in the major metropolitan centers. During the pre-Lincoln Presidencies of Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan, thousands of cigar factories were established in the U.S., mirroring and exceeding the boom taking place in Cuba. By 1860, there were already 350 cigar factories in far-Western California, twice that in Illinois and twice THAT in New York City. And the association between politics and cigars, though rudimentary, had begun.
Since the 1860’s, elections have been special times for cigar makers, wholesalers, and retailers alike, all of whom quickly learned there was money to be made by covering boxes with labels picturing candidates and issues and offering them for sale wherever opinions ran hot. Saloons, pool halls, barber shops and men’s clubs were favorite spots.1888 & 1892 Free Trade vrs. Protectionism
This little gem is a box of 5 cigars given away as a thank you to Republican donors. To speed production and keep costs down, they used a standard “Nailed Wood with Hardware” but the black and silver logo and use of silver ink are both distinctive. It is the oldest box of 5 yet reported as that size box wasn’t legal until 1910. This would have been packed with 9 or 19 or 39 others in a larger box (likely cardboard) to which a 50 or 100 or 200 tax stamp could be attached. [9285] [3595]
1888 Grover Cleveland vrs. Benjamin Harrison
Introduced in the late 1870’s, this style NWH choice box held two standard cabinet photos of politicians or other celebrities. [2169]
REPUBLICAN NOMINEES has real photos pasted on, five years before it became technologically possible to print photos on a label. The box may be one of a pair. [2163]
The election of 1888 is a famous one in cigar circles as no other election in history generated more cigar brands and a greater variety of box styles. Particularly noteworthy are the large numbers of “Your Choice” style boxes.
The game-box version features the four opposing candidates, but the awkward center-hinge design made it impossible to see them at once. Retailers had the option of displaying their favorite, or the best seller, face-out toward the customer. [8168]
[8170]
Pairs, like seen
below, are rarely
found. [2171]
1886 Love and Scandal in the White House
Grover Cleveland may not have won the cigar war, but he won the fair damsel. Cleveland has the honor of being the only U.S. President to be married while in office. In 1886, during his first term, the 49 year old chief executive wed Frances Folsom, a young woman less than half his age. Marrying a 19, 21 or 22 year old (depending on which history you read) became a contributing factor, some believe, to Cleveland’s loss in the election of 1888. This box celebrating their union was filled with cigars by Powell & Goldstein, an Oneida, NY, company employing 100+ rollers.
[2203]
Blaine lost the election but won the cigar war
[11675] [7930] [2173]
1884 Grover Cleveland vrs. James G. Blaine
Once printing technology permitted, colorful patriotic themes dominated election boxes. [11819]
PEOPLE’S CHOICE proved to be a prophetic name with Cleveland sweeping the election. [2166]
The trade card depicts Blaine and his VP candidate John Logan, who says “We’ve got the nomination, but
to get elected we must keep the boys supplied with CAPADURAS,” then one of the nation’s biggest sellers.
Early reference by a major maker to cigars as bribes. [8938]
1880 James A. Garfield vrs. Winfield Scott Hancock
A plethora of third party candidates and a violently anti-Masonic movement tarnished the campaign, the Republican side of which hinged almost entirely on claims of Democratic corruption in big cities. When Garfield was shot, his VP Chester A. Arthur, a wealthy cigar smoking party boy took over.
[2165]
Garfield and his running mate, Chester A. Arthur, are featured inside this patriotically decorated box. The brand name atop the lid of the box, SURE THING, belies the notion this may have been one of a pair, the other featuring the Democratic candidates.
1880 Generic
One of the more unusual political boxes is this generic from the election of 1880. Cigars made by Jacob Schmitt in his 3 man factory located at 34 Division St. in NYC. One man has his back turned, the other hides under an umbrella.
[2162]
1876 Rutherford B. Hayes vrs. Samuel Tilden
This jewel of an Issues box depicts the two factions (rural Blacks and urban Irish) trying to push their candidate through a turnstile leading to the White House. Spikes atop the fence prevented either candidate from straddling the issues. Cigar boxes weren’t permitted to be manufactured of tin prior to 1870, making this box the oldest authenticated use of tin to pack cigars. The box is hand-soldered, plain, decorated only with paper liner and inner label.
The 1876 election between Republican Hayes, who strongly urged rights for Negroes, and Tilden, a hot tempered urban reformer who won the popular vote (by 250,000) was decided by Congressional Committee after Southern electoral votes appeared under suspicious circumstances. No surprise, a Congress controlled by Republicans awarded the Presidency to Hayes. In what has come to be called “the compromise of 1877” Hayes rewarded Southern states by with-drawing U.S. troops which had occupied the South since the Civil War, ending reconstruction. [2209]
1872 U.S. Grant vrs. Horace Greeley vrs. Victoria Woodhull
“Womens Rights” included the right to smoke in public, a hotly debated issue since Puritan days. The fashionable pretty cigar-smoking woman is rejecting “her” party and accepting gift cigars from the Democrats, while the hang-dog women’s party is attracting a different clientele. Ultimately, her choice didn’t matter, as both parties lost to the popular Grant. This is the earliest depiction of cigars being given away by a political campaign in exchange for attention and presumably votes. It is also a very early use of the women’s rights movement to sell a product.
Some of the earliest political boxes are issues boxes seeking to attract a smoker’s eye by depicting one of the day’s more newsworthy controversies. Any issues boxes are rare and a thrill to find.
The 1872 election pitted Republican Grant against Democratic newspaperman Horace Greeley, but the real attention-getters were the nominees of the newly formed Equal Rights Party: feminist Victoria Woodhull and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Interestingly, Woodhull couldn’t have served had she been elected not because she was a woman, but because she didn’t meet the minimum age requirement of 35. [7594]
1868 Ulysses S. Grant vrs. Horatio Seymour
After the Civil War, it became the practice to create a brand of cigars to capitalize on a politician’s popularity or as a genuine personal statement of support. Boxes included a portrait and the candidate’s name but seldom party identification. The cigar maker’s name is usually prominent, more often than not emblazoned across the side or back of the liner. Willingness to be associated with the candidate suggests sincerity of the intended support, in contrast to the Your Choice style boxes, which never identify the cigar maker.
Heavy smoking wildly popular Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant helped bring cigars into the mainstream. Grant became the only presidential candidate whose campaign song touted his love of cigars when “A-Smoking His Cigar” was introduced: “The people know just what they want. Less talk and no more war. For President, Ulysses Grant a-smoking his cigar.” [1401]
This Binghamton, NY, brand was created at least two years before Grant ran for the Presidency.
1860 or 1864 Abraham Lincoln: The first campaign label?
This may be the first Lincoln label, but certainly not the last. Lincoln has appeared on more cigar labels than any other person, more than 1,000.
During the 1830’s, 40’s, and 50’s the Cubans experimented widely with shapes and sizes of labels to decorate the millions of boxes of cigars they were shipping worldwide. Many, like the Washington label designed for the top of a box, were early short-lived bad ideas. Others, like the three orators, were suitably designed for the end of a box of 100, but the placement of text above and below the image was quickly abandoned. By the 1860’s the most common form of cigar label was designed for the end of a box, vertical, with text above a square image below. Lithographic design and the absence of a beard tends to place this image before Lincoln became President, or very early in his term. In contrast to most Cuban labels, a maker and address are not given, but its discovery in a large European collection of Cuban cigar labels compiled 1838-1868 leads credence to that attribution. Was it originally ordered by a Lincoln supporter to help raise recognition or drum up votes? We’ll never know.
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The First Politicians on a Cigar Label
It’s logical to assume the revered former President, George Washington, was the first US President to be honored on a cigar box. If nothing else, he’s pictured on one of the earliest cigar boxes yet discovered, this Cuban box of 100 dating from around 1848.
The earliest living American politician known to have appeared on a cigar label was Henry Clay, who visited Cuba in 1850 and was honored with a long-lived cigar brand, possibly before he left the island.
Plagiarizing ideas was common among Cubans, one of whom who reasoned if one famous American orator’s name and picture could sell cigars, tres grandes politicos might sell even more.
More is known about life in ancient Abyssinia than about the cigar industry of Cuba and the U.S. before 1860. It would be safe to say we have more relics of the former than the latter, as well as more scholars devoted to learning about life thousands of years ago than we have dedicated to discovering the foundations of modern packaging and advertising. That can make it difficult to report too much with certainty. A lot of what can be written is conjecture and extrapolation based on very little physical data. That having been said...
The earliest political box is a “Not Really” since Washington wasn’t running for office in the 1840’s when it was used. The label featuring three active politicos honors their importance but probably had no campaign connection. [7423] [3720]
This pair of “issues” labels was offered as a stock item by NY label printer Johns & Co. in hope of cashing in on the tariff debate that dominated the elections of 1888 and 1892. Johns offered them with and without the names of candidates added at no extra charge. Labels were also offered blank -- with no title at all -- so they could later be easily customized locally. The wording on cigar labels was suggested by printers but selected by cigar factory owners, wholesalers, distributors and retailers, the majority of whom would have supported free trade because of its impact on Havana tobacco and Cuban cigars. The Democratic label urges “taxation only for necessary expenses of government” and the Republican label seeks “protection to home industries” “reciprocity with all nations.” Like most loose labels, these images have not been found on a box. [11604] [11605]
A large “McKinley Stinker” poster criticizes the McKinley tariff act of 1891 which sent the price of Cuban cigars and Cuban tobacco skyrocketing, thus driving down the quality of domestic cigars dependent on the latter for blending. The tariff was but one of the reasons the Republicans lost the election of 1892.
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1892 Benjamin Harrison vrs. Grover Cleveland (Round II)
In 1888 the Democrats won the popular vote by 90,000 out of 11,000,000 cast, but decidedly lost the electoral college. Cleveland continued the long tradition of Presidential candidates not personally campaigning, by giving only one speech in 1888 (wouldn’t THAT be refreshing today?) leaving all the campaigning to Allen Thurman, his 77 year old VP running mate. Last minute Republican trickery using a fake letter allegedly from British officials urging support of Cleveland swayed the huge NYC Irish vote, costing the Democrats NY and the election.
In 1892 the same candidates, both with new running mates, went at it again. Incumbent Harrison faced serious opposition for the nomination from James G. Blaine and William McKinley. Populists, Prohibitionists and Socialists all ran presidential candidates. With free trade the key issue, labor backed the Democrats. 74.7% of the country’s eligible voters cast ballots, and Cleveland became the first, and still only, man to serve non-consecutive terms as President.
According to the back of this trade card for BREVITO cigars, it was a very different country in 1892. Note states with the same or more electoral votes than California: Alabama, Georgia, North & South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, Missouri, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Texas, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. The West was nearly empty.
[11679]
This give-away box of 12 was legalized
in 1891, the year before the election.
Printing on wood was considerably
cheaper than paper labels. [2189]
The back of this trade card picturing
Harrison proclaims both candidates
have “pronounced in favor of the
excellent quality of the PAPPOOSE