The Bonsack cigarette machine and labor unrest

 

(learnnc.org) In 1881 James Duke traveled to New York and hired approximately 125 Eastern European Jewish immigrants to hand-roll cigarettes for W. Duke Sons and Company in Durham. These workers were skilled hand rollers, able to roll three or four cigarettes per minute; they had learned the trade in Europe, where cigarettes were first developed, and had worked for a company in New York. At the time of Duke’s visit, they were on strike against that New York business, presumably for better wages or shorter hours.
These workers moved to Durham and started work for the Dukes. By 1883, the workers were rolling 250,000 cigarettes daily. In 1884, however, James Duke learned of a recently invented machine that could theoretically roll as many cigarettes in a day as 48 workers could make. This machine was known as the Bonsack machine after the name of the inventor, James Bonsack. Continued