Invention • Function • Art By Ben Rapaport To open, tobacco was native to the Americas as early as 6,000 B.C. The uninterrupted consumption of tobacco in a variety of forms in almost every corner of the civilized world for more than 400 years—the custom of pipe smoking is at least that old—spawned a plethora […]
By Donald-Brian Johnson Ever watch Mad Men? If you were one of the many fans of that series, which meticulously recreated American life in the early 1960s, after awhile you started to notice something: nearly everyone on Mad Men smoked. A lot. It’s something you don’t see much anymore, in the movies, or on TV, […]
Match Safes and Little People A Conversation with Dr. Howard Knohl of The Knohl Collection by Judy Gonyeau, Managing Editor It is said that Museums showcase only 5% of their collection at any given time; however private collectors Dr. Howard and Linda Knohl are able to keep their over-80,000 items across 17 collections on view […]
By William A. Turnbaugh, Ph.D. Native American traditions and mythology highlight the regard that the New World’s people have long held for their smoking pipes. Links between the tobacco pipe, the gods and the tribe stand forth in the belief systems of many American Indian societies. For most, their pipes symbolized group identification and cosmic […]
By Richard Elliot When Christopher Columbus reached the West Indies in 1492, the natives greeted him with fruit, wooden spears and “certain dried leaves which gave off a distinct fragrance.” The Spanish sailors in Columbus’ crew appreciated the fruit but threw away the dried leaves not knowing what they were for. A few weeks later, […]
