I swear I felt an earthquake today. I was in the bathroom, when the building seemed to be undulating somewhat back & forth, but somewhat up and down as well. It was mild—at first I thought I might be having some sort of dizzy spell, then decided no, it was definitely not me. Then I thought perhaps it was the building swaying in the wind. I’m on the 15th floor of the Sheraton hotel downtown, and I have had experiences before at the top of tall buildings in the wind, a light sway. But there was no wind. And the motion went on for at least a couple minutes. Because I’ve never been in an earthquake that I’m aware of, I don’t know what it’s like. And it might have been only detectable on upper floors of buildings, where I presume the building’s more sensitive to ground forces. But no one else said anything.
So I’ll want to see a report in tomorrow’s Raleigh News & Observer. That’s the daily here. It’s a slim-line broadsheet (broadsheets generally in America have about 25% less surface area than they used to, but this one is really small). Standard hard news on page one—hasn’t gone to daft and goofy in the front as the Forum has. Standard news inside, little world news. A fairly all right but respectable newspaper. I was surprised to see a portrait of a turkey on page 1 Wednesday, but it was a story about money for turkeys. Apparently NC grows a lot of turkeys.
But not so many tobacco leaves anymore. Today’s bus tour was to the Washington Duke farmstead. Duke, with his classic southern name, is well known for having pretty much singlehandedly turning cigarettes into a world-class product, from right here in the center of tobacco production in Raleigh/Durham (1/2 hour from each other). Apparently after the Civil War he returned from being a POW in the North to a farmstead without much beyond a load of tobacco leaves, whatever was left from the North soldiers having picked through the crop—turns out they loved southern tobacco. (I seem to recall Richmond was accidentally burned at the end of the Civil War, mainly because the Rebels were trying to keep the Yanks from getting to the tobacco warehouses.)
Duke tried to sell his cigarettes from the left over, to apparent good effect, and soon he was merrily supplying America with smokes. But it really got off the ground when they discovered the milder “golden leaf” curing process (uses heat) and then in 1895 the invention of he cigarette rolling machine that could beat a human tobacco roller (who was capable of rolling only 4 a minute).
The newly formed American Tobacco Company bought out the competition but was split by anti-trust legislation in the early 20th century. It became the world’s biggest anyway, supplying the troops in World War I, who came back with the smoking habit, creating massive ad campaigns, and from there we know where it went.
So truly this little spot of North Carolina was world center of smoking, and dominated the economy—as it had even in colonial days.
—Oct. 12, 2012, Raleigh, North Carolina
OtD 