The Decline of Chewing Tobacco

In the late 1930’s, chewing tobacco usage lost its battle with the emerging cigarette industry as well as its appeal in mainstream America and was delegated to the history books in much of the country with exception of the deep South but, with the smoking bans seen across America, there has been a rebirth of Smokeless tobacco popularity and Americans are beginning to use chewing tobacco again but will probably never see the popularity it did in the 18 and 1900’s. And, to answer the question about the ads painted on the barns across the heartland? That’s something you may not know!

You see, those ads go back to the overwhelming popularity of chewing tobacco around the turn of the 20th century and tobacco companies would pay the owners of those barns $1 to $2 a year in the early 1900’s, which translates to about $20 to $40 today. It seems like a low amount for advertising one of the most profitable businesses at that time but you have to take into consideration where these barns were located. Today, we see them on old barns in the middle of nowhere or, in the fields along the Interstates but, back then, they were literally in the middle of nowhere. So, why pay anything to advertise on them? Simple, the farmers had an ulterior motive.

Barns are made of wood and need to be painted so they don’t rot away. Since the ads usually took up all four sides of the barn and sometimes the roof, the farmers agreed to the low pay for advertising because they basically got the barn painted every couple of years for free! What you may not know is that some of the companies paid popular artists to paint them. In fact, Pinkerton Tobacco often paid large sums of money to the artists to paint these barns with their popular ads.