The Cigar Makers' Union (C.M.I.U.)

(National Cigar Museum) ... In the 1800's, the Union's chief enemy was tenement house factories employing women and children working under appalling conditions in their flats. Their next crusade was against the Tobacco Trust. Unlike the tenements which were a primarily a New York City problem, the Trust impacted Union members around the country. Many of the celluloid give-aways seen in another Museum exhibit reflect the vigor and direction of that campaign. With the Trust's break-up in 1911, the chain stores, especially United Cigar Stores, the retail arm of the technically dissolved trust, became a prime concern. They had good reason to fear United Cigar with its endless premiums and price-cutting, thousands of stores stocked with a variety of related notions, situated in prime urban locations, usually on corners of busy streets. The battle against United lasted many decades, with both sides ultimately disappearing, United killed by the depression, the Union by machinery and its own inability to adjust to changes in the industry. Continued

Images: 1. Employees of 7-20-4, R. G. Sullivan, Cigar Factory, Manchester, N.H., no. 192, 100 [percent] Members of Cigar Makers, International Union, June 24, '21 (Library of Congress). 2. Union Label (Wikipedia).