NEWS OF DUKE HOMESTEAD
Spring 2017
Volume 39, Issue 1
GOLD LEAF
Inside this issue:
around Durham and Kavala for several generations, each local environment, seed type, and curing method yielding a different result. Durham be-came known in this time for bright leaf (also called “flue-cured”) tobacco, and Kavala for aromatic tobacco (also sometimes called “Turkish” or “oriental” tobacco). Aromatic tobacco is sun-cured and, as (Continued on page 4)
What does Durham have to do with a 2,700-year-old city in Greece? More than you might guess.
Durham, North Carolina, USA and Kavala, Greece are con-nected in both past and pre-sent. Founded over 2,000 years and 5,000 miles apart, tobacco leaves link the an-cient city of Kavala and the New South city of Durham.
Durham and Kavala became tobacco hubs in the mid-nineteenth century. Both cit-ies were home to markets for buying and selling tobacco grown in the surrounding countryside, as well as facto-ries for processing cured to-bacco leaf. The tobacco in-dustry brought similar change to both places – iconic archi-tecture, an influx of laborers, increased wealth for mer-chants, tremendous growth in industry, and new internation-al connections. It also brought labor disputes, monopoly,
and ultimately a vacuum in economy, landscape, and memory when the tobacco industry departed in the late twentieth century.
Both Durham and Kavala emerged as centers of buy-ing, selling, and manufactur-ing tobacco in the mid-1800s, and both as a result of war. People had grown Nicotania tabacum in the rural areas
The Durham-Kavala Connection
1, 4
Upcoming Events, Financial Report
2
From the Site Manager’s Desk
3
In Memoriam
3
Congratulations, Graduates!
5
Family Outings
5
Membership Form
6
Aromatic tobacco curing in the sun in Kavala, Greece
The Durham-Kavala Connection
By Jessica Shillingsford About GOLD LEAF
The Duke Homestead Education and History
Corporation publishes GOLD LEAF. The Corporation is a non-profit organization dedicated to the development of the Duke Homestead State Historic Site and Tobacco Museum. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. Visit the website, dukehomestead.org , for more information. This newsletter is published semiannually and is available free of charge for digital subscribers. A paper copy can be received for $5.00 a year.
For more information, write:
Duke Homestead Education and History Corp.
2828 Duke Homestead Road
Durham, NC 27705
Or e-mail: duke@ncdcr.gov.
DHEHC President: Thomas Shaw
GOLD LEAF Editor: Katie Vanhoy
Printing: Sir Speedy
Financial Report
Mary Bell
Treasurer
The funds of the Duke Homestead Education and History Corporation as of April 1, 2015 are as fol-lows:
General Fund Savings $10,282.29
General Fund Checking $9,417.51
Scottrade Account: $49,911.91
Total Assets: $69,611.71
Page 2
Upcoming Events
Family Outings 3rd Saturdays of the month from May to September
Get hands-on with history at Duke Home-stead. Enjoy a morning out with your family full of fun and learning. We will provide free history-themed activities for kids from 10:00 am and 12:00 pm on the 3rd Saturday of every month between May and October (rain or shine).
Free of charge
Pork, Pickles, and Peanuts July 22, 10:00 am - 3:00 pm
Celebrate North Carolina food culture and history. This extremely tasty event includes BBQ and Pie contests. Guests can taste the BBQ and pick a People’s Choice winner of their own. Venture back in time at the Duke House where costumed interpreters will demonstrate historical cooking methods.
Free of Charge
Harvest and Hornworm Festival August 26th, 10:00 am - 3:00 pm
Celebrate North Carolina farming culture and history at Duke Homestead with our Harvest and Hornworm Festival. Don't miss the loop-ing contest and Hornworm Race! This event will feature live music, local arts and crafts vendors, hands on history, and the last tobac-co auction in Durham!
Free of Charge
Find more information on all of our events at DukeHomestead.org. Page 3
VOLUME 39, ISSUE 1
From the Site Manager’s Desk
2017 has brought a fresh start for us at Duke Homestead! Renovations to the Visitor Cen-ter are nearly complete, and the lobby, offices, auditorium and restrooms have an updat-ed professional look. Unseen improvements include the fire and security systems in the building, and the staff are go-ing to continue updating the space in the coming months. Please stop by and see it in person!
This year we will spend more of our energies updating ex-hibits in the lobby and muse-um. Last year we created a new Duke family history board that we utilize while introduc-ing tours. Due to the construc-tion in the lobby we needed to re-do the Tobacco Seed exhibit at the entrance to the muse-um. Next, we will create a site
history display for the lobby that will trace the property’s history from before Washington Duke through the creation of Duke Homestead State Historic Site.
Fall and winter of 2016 saw another merry Christmas by Candlelight celebration, as well as the suc-cess of a new Hal-loween program. For 2017 we will continue these and other pop-ular events (see the full event calendar for de-
tails), as well as bring back a Methodist Revival program that the site had done in years past. We invite you to visit or volun-teer at any of these events!
In Memoriam
In the past two years we have welcomed new Members at Large into our support group, Duke Homestead Education and History Corporation. But we have also lost integral, long-term members of our Duke Homestead community. Since our last newsletter, Mary Albert Ward and Ben Roberts passed away.
Mary Albert Ward passed away on Tuesday, November 22, 2016. A lifelong teacher, Mary Albert had a passion for working with children. She also had a passion for history, and was a charter member of Duke Homestead’s support group. An active board member and volun-teer, she generously gave her time and energy to the site.
Bennett (Ben) Watson Cowper Roberts died on December 17, 2016. He worked as the Com-munity Relations Coordinator for American Tobacco Company’s Durham Branch, but he was also a published historian. Ben Roberts was an ardent advocate for Duke Homestead, and longtime DHEHC officer. Ben was instrumental in establishing the site’s artifact and library collections. His expertise on Washington Duke, American Tobacco, and other Homestead-related history is a loss that will be felt for a long time to come, as will his collector’s eye. its name suggests, has a rich flavor and aroma. Locally it was smoked in cigarette form, and during the Crimean War of 1853-1856 European soldiers brought to the region to fight acquired a taste for aromatic tobacco in cigarette form. Once back in Europe, soldiers sought those aromatic cigarettes from the Mediterranean and created an international demand for the product. This narrative will like-ly sound familiar to Durhamites. At the end of the American Civil War in 1865, soldiers stationed in Durham went home to vari-ous areas of the country and wrote back to Durham’s Station for more of the unique bright leaf pipe tobacco known later as Bull Durham. This demand catalyzed Durham’s tobacco factory boom in the late 1860s and 1870s.
American companies debuted “Turkish” cigarettes made with aromatic tobacco in the early 1900s. Liggett & Myers intro-duced Fatima cigarettes in 1905 (still under the ownership of the American Tobacco Com-pany) and RJ Reynolds launched Camel cigarettes in 1913. Global demand, and especially American de-mand, for aromatic ciga-rettes peaked after World War I, when once again soldiers traveled abroad to fight and developed a taste for that style. Not only did American compa-nies promote various “Turkish” cigarette brands, they began to add aro-matic tobacco to signature (Continued from page 1)
“American blend” cigarettes like Chesterfield or Lucky Strike. To satisfy this demand for aromatic tobacco, Ameri-can companies set up branch-es in Kavala (and other towns lining the Aegean) to buy and process aromatic tobacco for their cigarettes.
In many cases, smaller com-panies emerged for the exclu-sive purpose of buying and selling aromatic tobacco. Gary Tobacco, incorporated in 1915, was one such company. It be-came a wholly-owned subsidi-ary of Liggett & Myers (based in Durham), whose tobacco buyers lived and worked in Kavala year-round. Many of the individuals in Kavala for Gary Tobacco were Durham-ites, and they played important roles in the business and diplo-matic communities through much of the twentieth century.
While Durham’s tobacco econ-omy thrived through World War II and the following dec-ades, Kavala’s tobacco econo-my declined. Instability during the conflict and the constant search for better prices led American manufacturers to open new markets. As demand for cigarettes fell in the 1980s
and 1990s, both Durham and Kavala shuttered warehouses and factories. The absence of the tobacco industry left struc-tures unused, people without work, and city identities in question.
Tobacco museums emerged in the absence of tobacco indus-try. Kavala opened The Insti-tute of Social Movements and Tobacco History in 2003. Duke Homestead’s Tobacco Muse-um opened in 1989. Both mu-seums exhibit similar artifacts and interpret similar themes, including tobacco farming, manufacturing, products, and advertising.
In the twenty-first century, both cities face questions about how to reconcile their tobacco pasts. How should tobacco warehouses be repurposed? What is the legacy of the to-bacco industry? What stories and whose memories should be preserved? These ques-tions don’t have clear answers, and tobacco museums, both in Durham and Greece, play an important role in the discus-sion.
The Durham-Kavala Connection cont.
Page 4
American companies like Liggett & Meyers launched “Turkish blend” cigarettes in the early 1900s. Page 5
VOLUME 39, ISSUE 1
Congratulations, Graduates!
Anna Blackwell—Volunteer
After graduating from UNC Chapel Hill this May, Anna will be furthering her education and time as a Tar Heel by completing the Master’s of Arts in Teaching program at UNC. She is excited to com-plete her Master’s degree there, as it will aid her in her goal of teaching high school United States his-tory. Anna’s experience at Duke Homestead has been an invaluable asset to her future education and career plans; teaching history to the public, especially to school children, has solidified her de-cision to go into teaching history.
Chris Laws—Part-Time Historic Interpreter
Chris completed his MA in History from North Caro-lina Central University during the spring semester. In August, he will be joining the History Depart-ment at North Carolina State University, working towards a PhD in Public History, while continuing his research on the themes present in North Caroli-na Civil War monuments. He will also have the op-portunity to teach undergraduate history courses.
Family Outings at Duke Homestead
Enjoy a morning out with your family that is full of fun and learning! Duke Homestead will provide free history-themed activities and crafts for kids and their families from 10 am to 12 pm on the 3rd Saturday of every month from May to September. Our first Family Outing was on May 20th, check out the full calendar below and learn more at DukeHomestead.org.
JUNE 17TH - FARM CREATURES
From wildlife to livestock, find out what roll different animals and insects could play on a 19th century farm. Make and take home a farm creature of your very own!
MAY 20 - HISTORIC DANCING
JUNE 17 - FARM CREATURES
JULY 15 - GAME DAY
AUGUST 19 - HISTORIC CLOTHING
SEPTEMBER 16 - FALL HARVEST
Casey Haney—Part-Time Historic Interpreter
Casey started at Duke Homestead in 2015 as a Junior Interpreter. She volunteered to do Visitor Services and give tours, and eventually became a part-time staff member. Casey graduates from Riv-erside High School this year, and will pursue engi-neering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech) in the fall.
Khadija McNair—Part-Time Historic Interpreter
Khadija joined Duke Homestead as an interpreter in the spring of 2017. She graduated from North Carolina Central University in May with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History. She is carrying her pas-sion for history forward and staying with NCCU to pursue a Master’s degree in History. (And staying with Duke Homestead during her studies!)
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Duke Homestead Education and
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2828 Duke Homestead Road Durham, NC 27705
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