James Albert Bonsack
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James Albert Bonsack (October 9, 1859,[1] Roanoke, Virginia,[2] USA – June 2, 1924, Philadelphia) invented in 1880 the first cigarette rolling machine.
Until then cigarettes had been rolled by hand. Readymade cigarettes were a luxury item, but became increasingly popular.[3] The slow manual fabrication process—a skilled cigarette roller could produce only about four cigarettes per minute on the average[4]—was insufficient to satisfy the demands in the 1870s. In 1875, the Allan & Ginter company in Richmond, Virginia offered a prize of US$ 75,000 for the invention of a machine able to roll cigarettes. Bonsack took up the challenge and left school to devote his time to build such a machine.[3] In 1880, he had a first working prototype, which was unfortunately destroyed by a fire while in storage at Lynchburg, Virginia.[4] Bonsack re-built it and filed a patent application on September 4, 1880.[3] The patent was granted the following year (U.S. patents 238,640[2] from March 8, 1881 and 247,795[5] from October 4, 1881). Bonsack's machine was able to produce 120,000 cigarettes in ten hours,[4] revolutionizing the cigarette industry.[3]
This article about an engineer, inventor or industrial designer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.[edit] References
- ^ Ancestry of James Albert Bonsack. URL last accessed 2006-10-11.
- ^ a b U.S. patent 238,640, with diagrams. URL last accessed 2006-10-11.
- ^ a b c d Bennett, W.: The Cigarette Century, Science 80, September/October 1980. URL last accessed 2006-10-11.
- ^ a b c Bonsack's cigarette machine. URL last accessed 2006-10-11.
- ^ U.S. patent 247,795, with diagrams. URL last accessed 2006-10-11
[edit] Further reading
- Tilley, N. M.: The bright-tobacco industry, 1860 - 1929; Arno Press, 1972; ISBN 0-405-04728-2.
