Should Cooperstown find spot for Buck Duke?

“At the same time [James B.] Duke was working to have the Bonsack [cigarette-making] machine perfected, he was installing a print shop in his Durham factory that could employ color lithography….

“Cards freely distributed with each pack of Cameo, Crosscut or Duke’s Best varied from the educational (flags and stamps of foreign countries) to the exotic (actresses wearing the costumes of foreign countries). Sets of ‘actresses,’ usually not fully clothed, were especially popular…. although Washington Duke objected to such ‘lascivious’ pictures….

“According to the New York Times, tobacco dealers like Duke used premiums to ‘entice boys to excessive cigarette smoking… Many a boy under 12 is striving for the entire collection, which necessitates the consumption of nearly 12,000 cigarettes. He will become demoralized and possibly dishonest to accomplish his purpose.’

“This commodity-connected collecting was a lasting innovation that continues today with baseball cards….”

— From “The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall and Deadly Persistence of the Product the Defined America” (2007) by Allan M. Brandt