Last week, in this space, we considered what the cartoonists who worked on postcards had to say about the smoking of cigarettes. The subject is a little larger than we could cover in one column (which gives us an excuse to return to it later) but we did see how often a woman who waved a cigarette in one hand (especially if that cigarette was in a holder) was available for, um, romance. (One unpaid advisor said I should have pointed out that a cigarette holder, ironically, hides her butt. I do not dignify such jokes with a reply.)
Cigars carry a similar weight in postcard cartoons. A rich man, for much of the twentieth century, was hardly ever depicted without one. A generation passed between the card at the top of this column and the next one, and yet the implication is clear. This is someone who can afford to buy the good tobacco.
As well as the attention of a good-looking young woman.
AND, apparently, trousers with loud checks.
But the cartoon cigar is versatile (as are the pants.) Tough lowlife characters in cartoons and comic strips frequently sported cheroots. The cigar was available in all qualities at all prices. Vice President Thomas Marshall’s remark that what this country needs is a good five cent cigar is frequently taken as an observation on the rising cost of commercial goods, but ALSO refers to the wide availability of really bad five cent cigars.
Of course, the tramp, hobo or bum of popular cartoons (see our long-distant blog discussing the differences between these chaps) depended on luck (the rich man tossing a half-smoked stogie away), charity (that nickel didn’t necessarily go for beer), or, er, other happenstance for what he smoked. He sort of had to take things as he found them.
For cartoon purposes, a bum without a cigar would have been as unrecognizable as one without stubble and a snub nose.
So was the cigar always a sign of one extreme of wealth or the other? Did no one in the middle class smoke cigars? Postcards don’t give us enough evidence here. THIS chap might be in a typical mid-century bungalow living room. On the other hand, he is wearing a smoking jacket. WITH a checkered collar.
The best we can do is admit that occasionally someone with an actual workaday job can be seen smoking a cigar. However, again, this gets us back into the line of tough guys who inhale robustos.
The hard-working man was felt to be capable of dealing with the labor of cigar smoking, a more elaborate process than simply lighting a cigarette.
As well as being tough enough to cope with the fact that the cheapness of tobacco was immediately detectable in the aroma and flavor.
A man who smoked cigars was tough, a man who had proved he could take it, whether he wore a top hat, a derby, checkered trousers, or overalls with his name on them. A man, we must say, with a certain air about him. (No, I MUST say that: it’s in the joketeller’s handbook.)
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