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The Research Triangle. William M. Rohe
Читать онлайн.Название The Research Triangle
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780812207514
Автор произведения William M. Rohe
Жанр Учебная литература
Серия Metropolitan Portraits
Издательство Ingram
Under the direction of Blackwell, Day, and Carr, the Blackwell Company experienced phenomenal growth. In 1869 the Blackwell Company employed a work force of twelve men who produced sixty thousand pounds of tobacco products. In 1871 the company branched out into auction buying and warehousing, and in 1874 the company built a new factory that when expanded in 1880 became the largest tobacco factory in the world. By 1883 the company had a workforce of nine hundred and produced over five million pounds of smoking tobacco.
Key to this rapid growth was the multifaceted advertising campaign developed by Julian Carr. In a letter to Blackwell, Carr wrote: “It ain't no use to tell me that advertising don't pay. I have studied advertising hard, and am satisfied about it.”70 Carr began by collecting celebrity endorsements, from Alfred Lord Tennyson among many others. He placed newspaper advertisements across the country and offered premiums such as razors or soap with purchases, and cash for the return of empty Bull Durham bags. Finally, he hired several sign-painting crews to travel the country to pay farmers to let them paint billboards on their roadside barns. The bull, and the tobacco it advertised, became a national icon in the late 1800s.71
THE DUKES OF DURHAM
The W. T. Blackwell Company, however, had plenty of competition—the most formidable being W. Duke, Sons and Company. Before the Civil War, two-time widower Washington Duke lived on a farm three miles from Durham's Station with his four children, Brody, Mary, Ben, and James. After fighting in the war and spending time in a prisoner-of-war camp, Washington returned home and opened a small tobacco factory on his farm. Soon after, Brody, his oldest son, tried to convince his father to move the operation into Durham. Having no success, Brody moved on his own, opening a small tobacco factory in an old house in the center of town where, in keeping with the town's history, he proceeded to develop a reputation both as a good businessman and a wild character. In 1874 his father finally saw the light, sold his farm, and moved his family and business into town. Brody maintained his separate business until 1879 when he joined W. Duke, Sons and Company.72
Figure 8. Julian S. Carr's national advertising campaign for Bull Durham Tobacco in the 1870s and 1880s. Teams of sign painters covered the country and paid locals for the rights to put up billboards and to paint the sides of barns (courtesy of the N.C. State Archives).
But it was James, Washington's youngest son, who is credited with the ambition and vision that created one of the largest monopolies in American history. In the 1870s the prerolled cigarette, first introduced in Europe, began to catch on in America. Before this innovation, tobacco was sold in plugs for chewing or in pouches for pipe smoking. To meet this new demand, tobacco companies including the Blackwell Company and W. Duke, Sons and Company began hiring hand rollers. The best of these could role approximately 2,000 cigarettes in a ten-hour day. It was James who convinced his partners to take a chance on a new rolling machine being perfected by James A. Bonsack of Virginia. Each Bonsack machine could produce 120,000 cigarettes in a day, the equivalent of forty skilled hand rollers. But W. Duke, Sons and Company not only bought Bonsack machines, they bought the rights to the machine, giving them a significant advantage over the competition. Profits came rolling in.
Then in 1884 James Duke moved to New York City to oversee the development of a new cigarette production plant, and once there, began organizing the American Tobacco Company. Incorporated in 1890 with James Duke as its president, American Tobacco was a holding company that owned many of the major cigarette manufacturers in the country. Over the next decade American Tobacco continued to acquire other manufacturers including R. J. Reynolds of Winston-Salem and the W. T. Blackwell Company. Then in 1904 James Duke reorganized the company into one large firm. By 1906, not counting cigars, the American Tobacco Company controlled 80 percent of the tobacco industry in the country. Its monopoly lasted until 1911, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the company had to be broken up to restore competition to the industry. This led James Duke to retire from the company and to pursue other endeavors, such as starting an electricity generation business and helping create Duke University.
The rapid growth in Durham's tobacco industry precipitated a similar rise in population and a number of new businesses. At the end of the Civil War, Durham's Station had approximately 150 residents. By 1870 the population had grown to 256, by 1880 it reached 2,041, and by 1890 it topped 5,000. The new businesses that opened included “brokers, sign painters, itinerant entertainers, saloons, retailers, an insurance agency and notably the town's first bank.”73
Figure 9. Tobacco factories in downtown Durham. Most of these factories have been converted to residential, retail, or office use (courtesy of Duke University Libraries).
In addition, the tobacco industry's need for cloth for tobacco pouches spurred the development of the cotton industry in the city. In 1884 Julian Carr formed the Durham Manufacturing Company to supply cloth to both his and others' firms in the city. Carr proceeded to build “one of the most extensive and finest plants in the country” in east Durham.74 Once in operation the plant branched out into producing several other types of cloth. Members of the Duke family also jumped into the textile business. Brody Duke first purchased one struggling mill and built another in north Durham. Benjamin Duke followed suit and built a mill in west Durham. To provide housing for their employees, they constructed mill villages surrounding each plant. Over the next several decades, textile mills were to play an increasingly important role in Durham's economy.
During the boom years of the late 1800s, the city of Durham struggled to keep up with the infrastructure needed to support its burgeoning population. Descriptions of the city during this time are unflattering to say the least: “In rainy weather, mud rose over pedestrians' ankles, seasoned with the leavings of horses and mules. Flies frolicked and bred in and about the deposits of outdoor privies and the pigpens decorating residential yards. The town's first attempt at a sanitation commission failed for lack of interest. Neighboring towns referred to typhoid as ‘Durham Fever.’”75
Durham's social geography also was established during this period. The wealthy settled on the high ground along major roads, while the poor, including a significant number of blacks, were relegated to the lower ground, often along streams and in gullies. This resulted in a relatively fine-grained pattern of neighborhoods with different socioeconomic and racial characteristics. These abrupt transitions among the city's neighborhoods exist to the present day.
BLACK ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN DURHAM
The entrepreneurial spirit that pervaded Durham during the late 1800s influenced the city's black population. After the Civil War many freed blacks moved off plantations and farms looking for opportunities in towns such as Durham. By 1870 blacks made up a substantial proportion of the city's population. One was John Merrick, who began his career in Durham as a barber, then branched out into construction, real estate, and insurance. In 1899 he and several partners founded the North Carolina Mutual and Provident Association—now the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company—the first black-owned insurance company in the state. More than a simple business, the association became “a catalyst for minority social and economic development through jobs, investments, loans, contributions and support of social programs.”76 Due to its rapid success, by the early 1900s the company moved to its own building on Parrish Street in the heart of the Durham business district. Another important black entrepreneur was Richard Fitzgerald, who with his brother started a brick-making business. Richard diversified his investments and played a key role in founding the Mechanics and Farmers Bank, which specialized in loans to black small farmers and businessmen.
Figure 10. Staff and building of the North Carolina Mutual and Provident Association (later the North Carolina Mutual Insurance Company) circa 1905. The association would grow into the largest African American life insurance company in the country (courtesy of the N.C. State Archives).
Yet another important