{"id":18531,"date":"2010-01-12T10:54:21","date_gmt":"2010-01-12T15:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=18531"},"modified":"2013-12-15T04:31:15","modified_gmt":"2013-12-15T09:31:15","slug":"chewing-tobacco-and-the-aristocracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2010\/01\/12\/chewing-tobacco-and-the-aristocracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Chewing Tobacco and the Aristocracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vintage ads are an excellent way to illustrate how “the way things are” are not the way things have to be or always were.\u00a0 In this post, I offer an ad for chewing tobacco.\u00a0 Now, most Americans today associate chewing tobacco<\/span> (eh em) “dip” with working class, rural, white men (hello family!) and, about ten years ago, baseball players (but I digress).<\/p>\n

In contrast to this current social construction, this vintage ad suggests that\u00a0dip\u00a0is the province of the aristocracy (details after the ad<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/p>\n

Here are the parts that got my attention:<\/p>\n

\"2\"<\/p>\n

Text:<\/p>\n

Take the aristocracy in England.\u00a0 As far back as the 16th century, they considered it a mark of distinction — as well as a source of great satisfaction — to use finely-cut, finely-ground tobacco with the quaint-sounding name of “snuff.”\u00a0 At first, this “snuff” was, as the name suggests, inhaled through the nose.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then, the ad claims that “snuff” is enjoyed, today,\u00a0by lawyers, judges, and scientists:<\/p>\n

\"3\"<\/p>\n

\"4\"<\/p>\n

Selected text:<\/p>\n

Why is “smokeless tobacco” becoming so popular in America?\u00a0 There are a number of reasons.\u00a0 One of the obvious ones is that it is a way of enjoying tobacco that is anything but obvious.\u00a0 In other words, you can enjoy it any of the times or places where smoking is not permitted.\u00a0 Thus, lawyers and judges who cannot smoke in the courtroom, scientists who cannot smoke in the laboratory, and many people who like to smoke on the job, but aren’t allowed to, often become enthusiastic users.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I just love the contrast between the current social construction and the attempt at social construction made in this ad.\u00a0 I have no idea whether there was a time when dip was<\/em>actually\u00a0enjoyed by the middle and upper classes.\u00a0 Anyone?\u00a0 Other comments welcome as well, of course.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vintage ads are an excellent way to illustrate how “the way things are” are not the way things have to be or always were.\u00a0 In this post, I offer an ad for chewing tobacco.\u00a0 Now, most Americans today associate chewing tobacco (eh em) “dip” with working class, rural, white men (hello family!) and, about ten […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,253,285,1757,341,1890,293,23705],"class_list":["post-18531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class","tag-history","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans","tag-ruralurban","tag-smokingtobacco","tag-social-construction","tag-vintage-stuff"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18531"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60564,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18531\/revisions\/60564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}