The Global Cigarette: Origins and Evolution of British American Tobacco, 1880-1945.

Abstract

During the 1880s, the tobacco manufacturing industries of Britain and America were revolutionized by the introduction of mechanized cigarette production. The development of this novel, image-laden product constituted a triumph for the methods of mass production and mass distribution in this most traditional of consumer goods industries. The Global Cigarette charts the way in which these innovations in manufacturing and marketing methods led to the formation in 1902 of the British American Tobacco Co. as an Anglo-American multinational joint venture designed to promote cigarettes in international markets.