In Greece, open archaeological sites and museums filled with artifacts from antiquity tend to dominate public representations of the past. Meanwhile, museums focusing on the collection of scientific instruments and on the preservation of archival records, technical apparatuses, and industrial sites rarely attract the interest of state administrators. For Greece is a nation that has constructed its modern identity almost entirely upon its ancient glory, with little regard for its more recent technological and industrial heritage. Private foundations often promote public awareness of the importance of this heritage, but inadequate funding remains a very real challenge and often serves as a convenient excuse for maintaining a more conventional notion of Greek history. One exception is the Tobacco Museum in Kavala, a small city by the sea in northern Greece.

Fig. 1 A panoramic view of the city of Kavala, circa 1930. Most of the tobacco warehouses were located on the coastline. (Reproduced courtesy of the Institute of Archeology and the Sciences of Antiquity, Paul Collart Collection.)

In the mid-nineteenth century, Kavala developed into one of the most important tobacco-processing centers in the Balkans, attracting the commercial interest of the Habsburg Empire, England, France, Egypt, and even the United States. A crucial reason for the cultivation of the tobacco crop in this area, then under Ottoman occupation, was that the sultan had forbidden Turks from growing it. Because of this restriction, both tobacco cultivation and the tobacco trade passed into the hands of Greek merchants. Smoking soon became a popular habit among the Greeks and the tobacco trade boomed. Facilitated by ideal climate and soil conditions, the area around Kavala developed into one of the main tobacco-producing centers in the country, and the city became a major export harbor (fig. 1). By 1913, there were sixty-one tobacco companies registered in the city and close to 6,000 workers in the industry. Warehouses of a distinct architectural style were built at that time and still stand as important landmarks, testaments to the close bond between the tobacco trade and the city’s political and social history.1

To honor that history, in 1996 the city’s small ethnographic museum organized an exhibition called Kavala: The Tobacco City of Yesterday. Artifacts related to the cultivation and processing of tobacco leaves as well as photographs and other memorabilia were donated by families of local tobacco merchants and workers. Public attendance exceeded all expectations, resulting in a growing interest in the city’s history. Complemented and enhanced over time, this exhibition became the basis for a permanent museum, and on 5 April 2003, supported by the municipal authorities, the first tobacco museum in the country opened to the public. It was (and still is) housed in a small and generally unsuitable space, the ground floor of the Greek Organization of Tobacco building, a choice dictated by financial constraints. In less than 700 square meters (7,500 square feet), the museum covers more than 120 years of tobacco history and displays artifacts ranging from those associated with the rural production and commercial processing of tobacco to the manufacture of cigars and the culture of tobacco use.2

Fig. 2 The first Greek patented machine for producing cigars, circa 1925. (Reproduced courtesy of the Tobacco Museum of the City of Kavala.)

The museum presents Kavala as the “Mecca of tobacco” in the late nineteenth century, a city that owes most of its recent history to the production and processing of tobacco and to the tobacco workers’ movement of the early twentieth century. The museum’s illustrated narrative of the technological and partly social history of tobacco processing in Kavala conveys a linear view of technological progress and a conventional, nonsociological shaping of technological artifacts. It does, however, succeed in communicating the importance of material objects in people’s lives. Approximately a thousand objects are on display in this cramped space, which unfortunately means that it is all too easy to miss some of them—even though they are all significant artifacts in the story of the tobacco industry. One easily overlooked item of special interest, for example, is a small machine for producing cigars, the first of its kind in Greece, which was patented in 1925 (fig. 2).

Visitors are free to explore the permanent exhibition on their own, guided by very short descriptions placed among the artifacts as well as by several stories told through vivid photographs hanging on the walls. The collection itself is divided into seven themes that are treated in succession in the single floor of the museum. Artifacts related to tobacco cultivation appear first, followed by those associated with traditional tobacco processing in the city’s warehouses; the introduction of the tonga—a new pressing machine for producing the tobacco bales—and the gradual mechanization of the process; the production of sample tobacco bales and their introduction to the market; references to significant local tobacco merchants and their families; quick narratives about the tobacco unions and unionists; and last, artifacts related to finished tobacco products like cigarettes and cigars. A few brief words about some of these sections are in order.

Once past the building’s unremarkable entrance, visitors (who pay no entrance fee) first encounter a number of very well-preserved tools used in tobacco fields during planting and cultivation and in farmers’ storehouses for the preparation of tobacco bales. The stitching of the leaves onto long needles and their subsequent stringing into bundles is reenacted at the end of the first gallery, highlighting the involvement of the farmer’s entire family in the process and their utter dependence on tobacco production. The exhibit walks visitors through traditional growing practices and illustrates the time and care needed to produce tobacco leaves. A wide variety of photographs and additional artifacts provide a broader view of the rural culture of the tobacco cultivator.

Fig. 3 Two tonga presses exhibited next to each other. The tobacco leaves were thrown inside the wooden box and pressed on the top either by a heavy iron object or, later on, by a press operated manually by a winch. (Reproduced courtesy of the Tobacco Museum of the City of Kavala.)

Visitors are then ushered into a gallery that tells the story of the traditional tobacco-production process, which began as soon as the leaves arrived in the city’s warehouses. Until the late 1920s, tobacco was processed entirely by hand. The processing took place on the upper floors of the warehouses, called salonia, where both men and women were employed. The work was divided between the sexes to form two main areas of expertise integrated into a clear hierarchy. The men (the dektsides, or exastratzides) were responsible for the initial division of the tobacco leaves by quality. They sat in pairs on rush mats on the floor next to the windows. Until the warehouses were fitted with electric lighting, positions adjacent to the windows were privileged over all the others. Younger and less experienced pickers were responsible for the second and third selections, and they too sat in pairs, though back-to-back. Each pair of experienced pickers had a female worker (the pastaltzou) sitting cross-legged about half a meter away. She was responsible for the lower-quality tobacco leaves and for stacking the chosen leaves into small piles (pastalia); in other words, she assisted the dektsides in the menial task of stacking the tobacco leaves. Women were barred from becoming dektsides, which preserved gender-based power relations within the workplace.3 This story is told through revealing photographs though with no other direct reference to the gendered nature of the tobacco work, or even to the multiethnic composition of worker’s groups.

Fig. 4 Female tobacco workers separating leaves into five groups by quality. The leaves were then thrown into the tonga press in order to produce the final tobacco bale. (Reproduced courtesy of the Tobacco Museum of the City of Kavala.)

Arranged chronologically, the artifacts that follow depict a period of political unrest, when tobacco unionists clashed with powerful merchants and the state, and it also covers the introduction of technology into the tobacco workplace. The financial crisis of 1929 and the world depression that followed made traditional methods of processing tobacco too expensive and time-consuming. Consequently, most of Kavala’s tobacco merchants attempted to replace their manpower with the more efficient tonga presses (fig. 3). Visitors encounter a rich array of artifacts here as they end their way through a series of reenactments of the tonga process. In the common parlance of the tobacco workers themselves, “tonga” referred not only to the pressing machinery itself, but also to the entire processing method brought about by the introduction of the new technology into the workplace—and often its finished product as well, the tobacco bale. “Tonga” retains the same multilayered significance in later analyses of the tobacco labor movement (fig. 4).

When Greece’s largest tobacco-processing firm, the Gar y Tobacco Company of Kavala, introduced the first trial machinery into its commercial salonia in 1930 in collaboration with the American Tobacco Company, the workers did not balk. They still harbored the illusion that the introduction of the new production technology would not affect their jobs. The prevailing sentiment, bolstered by the opinions of the tobacco technicians themselves, was that the new processing machinery produced a more perishable product, because tobacco leaves carelessly pressed by tonga machines were more prone to retain moisture. After the initial trials of 1930, however, the tonga machines reappeared in July of 1933, at which point the companies also decided to bar male workers from the new production process and allow only women to tend the tonga machinery. The benefit of this decision for the firms was twofold. The great majority of the male workers was unionized, and workers’ demands and strikes had caused the tobacco merchants a great deal of trouble in the past. Employing women therefore eliminated the lingering threat of labor unrest; it also cut processing costs in half due to the lower wages that could be paid to female workers. The museum tells this story of technological change and gendered employment practices through displays featuring the actual tonga presses as well as photographs, portraits, and other documents.4

Larger items such as sieves of tobacco leaves, bulky weighing balances, and a mechanical tobacco press—what the president of the museum’s directive board, Ioannis Vyzikas, calls the “magic box”—convey the notion that one production technology superseded another.5 By the 1960s, most of the companies had introduced humidifiers for automatically moistening the tobacco and electric presses for preparing tobacco bales. Functioning examples of these machines only act to reinforce a linear understanding of technological change in the tobacco industry, for visitors cannot help but be impressed with the size and efficiency of these later machines.

The museum could not avoid presenting displays of finished tobacco products as well, including cigarettes and cigars produced in the small tobacco factories of Kavala. A wide variety of smoking paraphernalia—tin and paper tobacco boxes, cigar cutters, knives, and a couple of tools for preparing tobacco for snuffing—is presented in the museum’s showcases. The tour ends with a number of portraits of prominent tobacco merchants displayed close to the exit and next to notable furniture from local tobacco factories.

What sort of audience does the Tobacco Museum attempt to attract? The museum’s director was pretty clear on this point: it is intended to appeal primarily to the adult citizens of Kavala in the hope that the exhibition’s artifacts and photographs will spark their memories, since many of them were tobacco workers in their youth. The museum also strives to attract groups from local schools, aiming to educate children on the importance of preserving historical memory and maintaining local knowledge of tobacco processing. The museum seeks not only to be an exhibition collection, but also to provide an interactive experience for its visitors. In the summer of 2008, for example, it arranged, for the first time, for the on-site production of commercial tobacco samples, hiring experienced tobacco workers to display and teach this largely forgotten method to interested visitors (fig. 5). A yearly writing contest on tobacco and its history aimed at the cit y’s schools also brings local children and their families to the museum and makes it a vivid part of the city’s life.

Fig. 5 Experienced tobacco workers produce commercial samples of tobacco in the museum, an artful skill that has almost been lost, summer 2008. (Reproduced courtesy of the Tobacco Museum of the City of Kavala.)

To a more specialized audience, such as historians of technology, the museum is a treasure. Those with a strong interest in mechanical detail have the chance to see all of the artifacts in use, for in the presence of the museum staff, visitors are welcome to turn on any of the apparatuses on display, even the electric tobacco press and the sieve. Visitors will also find machines and objects displayed here that rarely appear elsewhere—such as in North American museums, for example, due the overwhelmingly negative attitude toward tobacco that prevails there.

One potential group of visitors that might be disappointed, however, are serious researchers. True, the museum does own an impressive collection of archival materials, including 1,100 photographs, 900 books, newspapers, series of tobacco journals published as early as the 1900s (i.e., Revue des Tabacs), the entire archives of the National Tobacco Board, the Tobacco Merchant’s Union of East Macedonia and Thrace, and the Greek Tobacco Exporters Federation, and several archives from local tobacco companies. But none of these collections have been cataloged or digitized, and thus they are difficult for historians and other scholars to access. In addition, the museum’s lack of space and financial support turned this precious material into an object of dispute between the local authorities and other interested parties. Although the museum is scheduled to move into larger quarters at an old warehouse at the center of the city, the move has been delayed for technical and financial reasons.

Rather than dwelling further on the details of its displays and interpretations or on Greek attitudes toward technological history, I wish instead to note in conclusion that my own visit to the museum was a revelation. Both of my parents came from tobacco-farming families, and as a child I witnessed several times what the museum presents as the traditional rural practices of tobacco farming and processing. But I was born and lived in the city for years, and thus, what impressed me the most was the photographic collage of old warehouses—some of which no longer exist—close to the museum’s exit, a collage which serves to remind us of how the city looked only a couple of decades ago. In a world in which sophisticated displays using interactive software techniques and housed in marvelous buildings have become the norm, the Tobacco Museum of Kavala, established and maintained by the personal efforts of many individuals, seems to be a part of the very historical narrative it has put on display.

1. Maria Rentetzi, “Configuring Identities Through Industrial Architecture and Urban Planning: Greek Tobacco Warehouses in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century,” Science Studies 1 (2008): 64–81.

2. See the Tobacco Museum of the City of Kavala’s website, at http://www.tobacco museum.gr (accessed 27 April 2009).

3. Efi Avdela, “The Socialism of ‘Others’: Class Struggle, Clashes between Ethnicities, and Gender Identities in post-Ottoman Thessaloniki,” Ta Istorika 18/19 (1993): 171–204 (in Greek).

4. Since the 1940s, because of World War II and the American tobacco industry’s policy of opening up new markets, Greek tobacco exports have fallen sharply. By 1954, the tobacco workers’ movement had virtually disappeared. Its demise was hastened in 1952 by the repeal of 1933 legislation requiring at least 50 percent of the workforce of tobacco concerns to be male. The mechanization and simplification of processing methods, coupled with moves to relocate the tobacco-processing centers in an effort to curb the interwar trade-union movement, finally led to the abandonment of the warehouses. Today, almost all of Kavala’s tobacco warehouses are empty or have been redeveloped for other purposes. New images of tobacco factories have been displayed in an interesting photographic exhibit by Kamilo Nollas; see the exhibit’s catalog, Tobacco Factories (Athens, 2007). See also Lois Lambrianidis, “The Distribution of the Tobacco Industry and Tobacco Trade in Greece: A Tale of Increased Centralization,” Poli kai Perifereia 7 (1983): 11–40 (in Greek).

5. I would like to thank Ioannis Vyzikas for his warm welcome to the museum and for the two hours’ tour and the long interview he gave me on the morning of Christmas Eve, 2008. Vyzikas has played an instrumental role in collecting artifacts and archival material, establishing and maintaining the museum by investing his time and enthusiasm.

Maria Rentetzi is assistant professor at the National Technical University of Athens in Greece. She teaches the sociology of science and technology, with a special focus on gender. She is the author of Trafficking Materials and Gendered Experimental Practices: Radium Research in Early Twentieth-Century Vienna (2008).

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