Making Tobacco Bright: Creating an American Commodity, 1617-1937 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology)

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In her sweeping history of the American tobacco industry,Barbara Hahn traces the emergence of the tobacco plant ��s many varietaltypes, arguing that they are products not of nature but of economicrelations and continued and intense market regulation. Hahn focuses her study on the most popular of these varieties, BrightFlue-Cured Tobacco. First grown in the inland Piedmont along theVirginia� �North Carolina border, Bright Tobacco now grows all over theworld, primarily because of its unique—and easilyreplicated �cultivation and curing methods. Hahn traces theevolution of technologies in a variety of regulatory and culturalenvironments to reconstruct how Bright Tobacco became, and remains tothis day, a leading commodity in the global tobacco industry. This study asks not what effect tobacco had on the world market, buthow that market shaped tobacco into types that served specific purposesand became distinguishable from one another more by technologies ofproduction than genetics. In so doing, it explores the intersection ofcrossbreeding, tobacco-raising technology, changing popular demand,attempts at regulation, and sheer marketing ingenuity during the heydayof the American tobacco industry. Combining economic theory with the history of technology, MakingTobacco Bright revises several narratives in American history, fromcolonial staple-crop agriculture to the origins of the tobacco industryto the rise of identity politics in the twentieth century.

Making Tobacco Bright: Creating an American Commodity, 1617-1937 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology) Review

This contemporary addition to the history of tobacco in America is a welcome analysis of the relatively sparse, primary source material. The author guides us along the succession of labor institutions--from colonial to modern times--that appear to have determined the chosen agricultural practices in different tobacco growing regions of the United States. Her strength lies in associating evolving market trends and technological innovation with the immutable congealing of defined tobacco types, and the presumed "right" way to grow, harvest, cure and sell tobacco destined for domestic and world markets as they existed in the late nineteenth century.

As serious history (indeed, an expansion of her PhD thesis), the book is reasonably readable. During the period covered, the cultivation of tobacco was so ubiquitous that it was seldom documented in detail satisfactory to the uses of an historian. The author squeezes a vivid picture from the data and vague references in personal and commercial correspondence that do exist.

Any reader who has puzzled over the origin and criteria of USDA-defined tobacco classes (flue-cured, burley, Maryland, air-cured, dark fire/air, cigar wrapper, cigar binder, cigar filler, Oriental, primitive), or the much more numerous tobacco types (with their associated numbers and geographic designations), will find some clarity here. These designations carry an air of authority and biologic reality, which, as the author correctly concludes, is simply a picture of the state of the market and technology near the turn of the twentieth century.

There are problems with the book. While I can forgive an historian or economist for misapprehending the underlying science, I have to assume that the author, as well as her doctoral thesis advisors, failed to get the science right in this academic publication.

"...the yellowish-greenish hornworm, four inches long at the smallest (but sometimes as big as a man's arm), plump and nasty..."

The typography shows these words as the author's, rather than as a quote from a hyperbolic planter. Manduca sexta, the tobacco hornworm moth, can reach an adult size comparable to that of a hummingbird, but its caterpillar (the hornworm) starts off at a tiny 1/4 inch in length, and may reach a maximum length of 4 inches in its final instar, rather than becoming the author's arm-size behemoth. I'll ascribe this to editorial error.

Part of the difficulty is the author's conflation of varieties (cultivars) of Nicotiana tabacum with the somewhat arbitrary USDA types--often using the confusing term "varietal type," and in doing so, states explicitly (and incorrectly) that different varieties of tobacco are not determined by varietal genetics, but by cultivation and production choices. This would imply that one could start with seed of a cigar variety (cultivar), and by handling it as though it were a flue-cure variety, end up with a bright-cured Virginia. Her most emphatic genetic reference (Garner) is about 90 years old (scarcely a decade after the rediscovery of the work of Gregor Mendel). She endorses the odd notion that all tobacco plants are pretty much the same, and that the final product is entirely in the hands of those humans who select growing methods and processing techniques.

If one simply plants numerous different varieties (cultivars)--say, 40 different ones--during the same growing season, in adjacent beds, the phenotypic differences, even between closely related varieties, are obvious, even to inexperienced eyes. Grown under identical conditions, the plants are quite distinct. Analyses of their constituent alkaloid mix, and other analytics repeatedly demonstrate unique differences. These differences do, of course, contribute to their choices for various specific uses, hence the association between genetics and market classes.

While all varieties (cultivars) can be air-cured and aged to yield excellent, distinctive tobaccos, only some varieties possess a chemical composition within the leaf lamina to produce satisfactory flue-cured tobacco. Flue-curing a burley or cigar variety results in "dead," flavorless leaf, lacking the bright color, sweetness and lower pH typical of flue-cured Virginia varieties. Some Orientals, though not all, can be nicely flue-cured.

I commend the author for adding an appendix on the genetics of tobacco. Unfortunately, it reads more like the diatribes of climate science deniers and creationists, picking emotive commentary and quoting valid findings out of context. She just doesn't "get" the science. All of the assertions that tobacco varietals, when grown in a new geographic area "break type" after just a few growing seasons are derived from observations of the nineteenth century or earlier--a time when the need for insect barriers on the bud heads was not understood; a time before any understanding of genetics; a time before it was recognized that separation of different varieties by as much as a half-mile might still result in insect-borne cross-pollination of tobacco. ARS-GRIN (the database of the US tobacco germplasm collection) lists well over 2000 varieties (cultivars) collected over the past century, and which are used by researchers world-wide. There is no mention of this in the book.

The author can validly argue that Perique tobacco--the product of a unique pressure-curing technique--can be produced from practically any variety (cultivar) of tobacco. For Perique, the method does determine the product. This is true only because the pressure fermentation brings about changes that mostly overwhelm any nuance of leaf variety. Perique is a product, rather than a variety (although a named "Perique" variety does exist, though its provenance is unclear).

My overall assessment is that the book is worth reading for its treatment of how historical labor practices, markets and technology influence our perception of what is "natural" and what is "correct" in the production of an agricultural item, and how governmental intervention can freeze definitions that were once useful. So long as the reader understands that her frequent use of tobacco "variety" is confused, and that her underlying premise that plant genetics play little if any role in the final product is just plain wrong, there is much of value to be found here.

I feel the rating should be about 3-1/2 stars. As the only review so far, I'll round it up.

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