Note: Cigarette smoking kills more than 480,000 Americans and more than 8 million worldwide each year. The USA spends more than $300 billion a year on smoking-related illness every year. At least 70 of the chemicals in tobacco smoke are known to cause cancer.

“Tobaccoland USA” is a newsreel style film that was commissioned by the Liggett & Myers Tobacco & Co, the company behind Chesterfield Cigarettes, and produced by the March of Time in 1939. The film is set predominantly in Durham, North Carolina – the heart of Tobaccoland – follows the various stages of producing Chesterfields from growing and harvesting to manufacturing and export. The film specifically highlights the role of the Ellis’, a tobacco farming family, as they go from the initial seed bed preparation to their end of harvest celebration.

Tobacco crop farmer (0:11). Steam engine train (0:14). Interior of passenger train (0:17). Train pulling into station Durham, North Carolina (0:33). Downtown Durham (0:41). Mailboxes Chapel Hill, North Carolina (0:51). University of North Carolina (UNC) bell tower (0:55). UNC graduation (1:00). Duke University campus (1:20). Interior Duke University Chapel (1:34). Museum, former home of Washington Duke (2:05). Durham U.S. Post Office (2:21). Messenger entering Durham Federal Building (2:29). Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company check via Fidelity Bank in Durham, NC for IRS/ US Treasury (2:33). Internal revenue tax stamps (2:38). Employees at Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co. factory (2:44). Packaging Chesterfields (2:53). Aerial shot factories (3:00). Employees walking, building with Chesterfield sign (3:12). Employees leaving factory (3:17). Visitors book for Chesterfield Factory (3:29). Chesterfield Cigarettes at plants in Durham, San Francisco, and Richmond, Virginia (3:36). Packaging boxes (3:51). Wrapping cartons of Chesterfields in Dupont #300 moisture proof cellophane (4:06). Packaging machine (4:08). Cigarette rolling machine (4:28). Factory workers (4:38). Chesterfield tobacco buyers (5:00). Map of United States including St. Louis, Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland (5:14). Liberty Warehouse No. 1: Satterfield & Stone Durham, NC (5:25) Tobacco auction Roycroft’s Warehouse, Durham (5:37). Tobacco buyers investigate crop (5:50). New crop entering Chesterfield factory, sorted by factory workers (7:09). Conditioning tobacco leaf (7:44). Animation of tobacco drying chamber (8:03). Packing away dried leaves into hogsheads, same method since old Virginia Colony (8:11). Tobacco aging at Chesterfield warehouses (8:36). Truck transports hogsheads (8:50). Gathering of tobacco farmers (9:33). Nature of Durham County, North Carolina (10:03). Ellis Family (10:16). Ellis Chapel and cemetery (10:19). Reverend Miller Dunn of Ellis Chapel (10:40). Durand Ellis patriarch of family (11:07). Ellis farming activities with livestock, butter churning, preserves & soap making (11:18). US Department of Agriculture Tobacco Culture Manual (12:18). Wood harvest (12:25). Farmers starting seed bed (13:02). Closeup of tobacco seeds demonstration (13:27). Tarp covering tobacco field (14:10). Ploughing fields (14:23). Benefits of fertilizer (14:56). Transplanting day on Ellis’ farm (16:04). Harvesting tobacco seedlings (16:38). Transplanting seedlings (17:10). Buyers exiting Liggett & Myers Tobacco Inc. Office (17:58). Field fully-grown tobacco (18:12). Buyers viewing tobacco fields from Ford Model 91 A Deluxe Tudor Sedan (18:23). Ellis family barbecue, Bob Johnson Chesterfield buyer in attendance (19:19). Beginning of tobacco harvest (20:48). Tobacco curing barn (21:44). Flue curing Southern Bright tobacco, animated diagram of process (22:35). Sorting cured leaf (23:42). Chesterfield Durham Warehouses (24:35). Hogsheads of tobacco arriving (24:46). Chesterfield blending process (25:18). Conditioning chamber (25:34). Stemming in stemerry (25:54). Turkish tobacco at port (26:52). Map Eastern Europe: Yugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, Aegean Sea, Black Sea (26:54). U.S. Customs Service supervising Turkish tobacco (27:26). Sign for Smyrna Turkish tobacco leaf (27:53). Blending of various tobaccos (28:02). Shredding tobacco leaves by high-speed rotary cutting machines (28:38). Finished cigarettes (29:28). Ellis Family farmhouse (29:42). Close-up of cast-iron oven (30:10). Couples leaving for annual Duke North Carolina game (30:25). Midnight rally and bonfire (30:41). Duke college dance (30:57). Packed football stadium (31:09).

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com