Tobacco bag stringing

This article introduces the concept of tobacco bag stringing and discusses its importance as a source of income for women in North Carolina and Virginia during the Great Depression. Adapted for elementary students.

Adapted by Pauline S. Johnson

Adapted from Tobacco Bag Stringing: Life and Labor in the Depression.

Empty tobacco bag with string. (North Carolina Collection gallery, UNC libraries. More about the photograph)

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• Lesson plan: Tobacco bag stringing: Elementary activity one This activity for grades 3–6 will help students understand what tobacco bag stringing was and why it was important to communities in North Carolina and Virginia. Students will read and analyze an adapted introductory article about tobacco bag stringing.
• Lesson plan: Tobacco bag stringing: Elementary activity three In this activity for grades 3–6, students will read and evaluate primary source letters from the Tobacco Bag Stringing collection. This should be done after Activity one, which is the introductory activity about tobacco bag stringing.
• Lesson plan: Tobacco bag stringing: Elementary activity four In this activity for grades 3–6, students will read and evaluate a primary source letter from the Tobacco Bag Stringing collection. This should be done after Activity one, which is the introductory activity about tobacco bag stringing. Students will investigate the influence of technology, and its lack, on the tobacco bag stringers. They will do a role play/debate in which they will assume the roles of owners of companies and other people that were involved in the issue.

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• Mrs. Emma Cleary: CLEARY, MRS. EMMA, married; two children; aged 30; husband aged 60; resides in Wilkes County, N.C. Children:...
• Mrs. Eugenia Allen: ALLEN, MRS. EUGENIA, (colored); married and has three children and four grandchildren living with her;...

Related topics

• Learn more about Great Depression, North Carolina, tobacco, tobacco bag stringing, and work.

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In the late 1800s and early 1900s, tobacco was an important crop. It was grown in many sections of North Carolina and Virginia. Many workers also worked in tobacco factories. Some of the tobacco was made into cigarettes and some was left loose so that the people who smoked could make their own cigarettes. The loose tobacco was kept in small cloth bags – tobacco bags. Tobacco companies hired people to put strings in the top of the bags so that they could be pulled shut. These tobacco bag stringers could work in their homes.

The tobacco bag stringers made money by finishing the bags. For example, a woman who put the strings in the bags could make about 50 cents for each one thousand bags she finished.

In the 1930s, the United States was in a time called the Great Depression. During these years many people did not have jobs and they did not have much money.

For some families, the money they made from putting the strings in the tobacco bags was very important. It helped the families buy food or pay for their homes.