Antique Vintage Old Baltimore Cigar Box 1883
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PLANTATION CIGAR BOX" c. 1883 Vintage old PLANTATION cigar box with a nice Harris litho showing native tobacco workers and the "boss" in a fancy hat on horseback, looks like he is giving orders, hey you with the water jug! Me? Yeah you enough water, get back to picking tobacco leaves, very nice detail to the litho! Made by Augustus Mencken in Factory # 859 Baltimore, Maryland. August Mencken founded the "Aug. Mencken & Bro." cigar factory in 1873 with a starting capital of $44 ($23 of his own money, $21 of his brothers). In about 1889 the Baltimore local Cigar Makers' International Union called a strike. The union did not have the funds to pay full benefits to members; the best it could manage was the $2.10 cost of a ticket to Philadelphia , which had so many cigar shops it was known as the Cigarmaker's Heaven. The only proof it required of a candidate's profession were the tools of the trade: a boxwood cutting-board and cutting tools. The anti-union Mencken acquired a large quantity of these tools, rounded up a large number of drunks and tramps, gave them a shot of whiskey and a set of the tools, and sent them to Union headquarters for their tickets. In the course of a few weeks, according to Mencken himself, "at least a thousand poor bums were run through the mill." The union went broke and was effectively destroyed; the strike
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