Written by History Teacher and History Department Chair Pat O’Connor, his newly published book, The Political Reconstruction of American Tobacco, 1862-1933, explores how the federal government influenced the tobacco industry following the Civil War.

“It explains how the tobacco industry — a pillar of American political economy since the early colonial period — was utterly transformed in the decades after the Civil War,” O’Connor said. “Broadly speaking, I am interested in how law and politics shape markets and the costs for those who lack the political power to participate in that process.”

The “deeply researched and clearly argued account,” digs into everything from labor to consumption; manufacturing to regulation, and demonstrates how tobacco emerged as a new industry that created immense power and stifling poverty across the nation, according to the description.

As a teacher, O’Connor often stresses to his students that they themselves are historians.

“They should know how to generate analytical questions about any information they encounter,” he said. “They should know how to find sources that can help them learn how to answer their questions, and then they need to know how to read and interpret those sources and put them into context to understand why they’re important. That’s what historians do professionally, and that’s what our classrooms are intended to help students learn.”

Throughout his book, there’s no question that O’Connor puts his teaching philosophy into practice.

“My book shows that the American tobacco market changed so much after the Civil War because of politics: manufacturers formed trade associations to shape federal tax policy (and ended up playing a crucial role in the construction of the Bureau of Internal Revenue —now known as the Internal Revenue Service); fertilizer producers and warehouse operators coordinated their efforts to determine international definitions of tobacco’s quality; and crop scientists promoted US tobacco production,” he said. “The tobacco market these people created overlooked, and even dismissed, the interests of tobacco growers, especially newly emancipated Black farmers and impoverished white farmers throughout the South. Like many markets, the tobacco market came to seem natural, but it was not. It was a political creation that rationalized debt, poverty, and intensified labor for thousands of small farmers.”

The Political Reconstruction of American Tobacco, 1862-1933 was published by Fordham University Press. A copy is available at the Putney library.