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Winter 95,96 Volume I Issue 1 |
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Winter 95,96 Volume I Issue 1 |
LABELS
t is the year 1900, the Gilded Age. President McKinley signs a bill putting the United States on the gold standard, Count von Zeppelin makes his historic first flight, Jim Jeffries wins the heavyweight championship, the Republicans gain the majority in the House and Senate, only 55% of the American public can read, and cigar smoking is the ultimate status symbol.
As tempting as it may be the espouse the old axiom: "History repeats itself," many events that happened during the Gilded Age will never be repeated, primarily due to the uniqueness of the times.
The cigar industry was at its peak in the United States. With over 110,00 hand-rolling factories employing 100 or more workers, to the thousands of mom-and-pop hand rollers toiling out of their homes, business was booming.
Since everyone's cigars sold for five cents and a large percentage of the public could not read, either due to illiteracy or language barriers (immigrants liked cigars too), the thousands of cigar making entrepreneurs desperately needed something unique to set themselves apart from the competition. It had to be the artwork on the inside of the lid.
No one had ever heard of point-of-purchase advertising back then, but they soon realized that the cigar smoker could easily communicate to the clerk his choice by pointing to the dog, horse, pretty girl, or Indian pictured on the inside lid of the opened box. Enter the art of the cigar label.
Click for page 2 of Labels.
