Censorship and Cigar Boxes

[El Presidente]

 

 

 

Censorship and Cigar Boxes

A National Cigar History Museum Exhibit

© Tony Hyman

Modified: January 20, 2011

    The Federal Government of the 1800’s cared more about collecting taxes than it did about regulating public morals. Page after page of tax regulations were designed to help the Federal Government skim part of every cigar factory’s slim earnings. Laws were intended to make sure the government got a share of every box of cigars as it left the factory. Fortunately for the industry, the Government didn’t seem to care what happened to the box after that. No laws were passed about the box itself, other than dictating how many cigars it could hold. Cigar makers and sellers were free to decorate those boxes with any name, claim and picture they wanted.

 

        The cigar industry intuitively followed the prime directive of successful marketing: “give the people what they want.”  Number one on most men’s wants list was pretty girls.  Pretty girls (women were called “girls” then and will be in accounts of then) ... Pretty girls appeared on millions of cigar boxes between 1860 and 1960. Considering how much men liked their women naked, it’s surprising how seldom cigar box girls were undressed, or, perhaps, how few boxes featuring nudes survived. Breasts did appear on boxes in allegorical or ethnic scenes, but seldom otherwise. Plenty of other interesting images appeared on 19th century boxes that would be unacceptable today.

 

        Cigar box pictures and themes have always been chosen in accordance with acceptable public morals, and the definition of moral changes over time. What was acceptable in one era wasn’t in another. Cigar boxes that have survived bear silent witness to the fact we’ve apparently gotten more prudish rather than less. Yes, we say the dreaded F word in public more, but today’s merchants would face serious consumer rebellion if they put some of the following images on public view today.

CONTINUED