Cigar box label LEGISLATOR, man reading newspaper with cigar

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A cigar box label printed with the word LEGISLATOR shows a man in a suit reading a newspaper while holding a cigar, a pairing that was a staple of late nineteenth and early twentieth century tobacco advertising. Makers of cigar boxes and bands in that era routinely turned to figures of respectability, such as professionals, politicians and gentlemen of leisure, to flatter buyers and suggest that a good smoke was part of a settled, educated life. The name on the label was meant to sell a particular brand rather than to identify a real officeholder, so the image says as much about how tobacco makers pictured their customers as about lawmaking itself. Labels like this were often discarded once the box was empty, which is why surviving examples are prized by collectors and historians of popular printing.

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