When Small Cigarette Companies Challenged Big Tobacco

(Bloomberg) In June 1931, with the U.S. economy in a depression and leaf tobacco prices at 20-year lows, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. decided to increase the price of Camel cigarettes.
This proved a truly bad idea. And the response of consumers and competitors offers a telling example of how the Great Depression was upending industry after industry. Increasing the price of a pack of 20 cigarettes to 15 cents from 14 cents launched a price war that undermined Big Tobacco's hold on a shrinking market.
First, the company's key competitors -- American Tobacco, Philip Morris and Liggett & Myers -- matched the price hike. But by fall, a small Virginia-based tobacco firm, Larus & Brother, had put out a new cigarette brand called White Rolls at just 10 cents a pack. Continued