With the Autumn Leaves Festival as a backdrop, history buffs and festival attendees gathered in the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History courtyard Sunday afternoon to hear Billy Yeargin deliver a lecture about cheap cigarettes and American culture.Yeargin, a professor with extensive knowledge of the history of the discount cigarette online industry, was the guest speaker for the October History Talks program at the museum. He spoke at 2 p.m. on Sunday about tobaccos impact on Amerian society over the years.Though the event was originally scheduled to be held inside the museum, organizers decided to move it outside to the courtyard where many festival-goers sat throughout the weekend to eat and socialize. Some people who visited the courtyard on Sunday were surprised to find that a lecture was taking place there, and they stopped to listen while they ate festival treats. Others came specifically to hear the presentation.Yeargin said prior to the event, I love the festival atmosphere. I think theyve done a great job putting this together. It preserves the footprints of our culture, and thats whats important. Thats the purpose. It reminds us of who we are.The professor has spoken once before at the museum. He spoke in 2009 about music and culture, but his focus on Sunday was on tobacco and culture. He spoke about the history of tobacco, of its cultivation by Native Americans here and the gradual development of a thriving tobacco industry. Yeargin said that up until the French and Indian War, tobacco was used as a currency in North America. He said many of the founding fathers were tobacco farmers.Tobacco was the backbone, not just of the economy, but of culture and society, he remarked.Yeargin also talked about different types of tobacco and techniques that were developed over the years. He then spoke about the tobacco industry in Surry County and what it still means today. According to Yeargin, there were 21 plants for tobacco production in Surry County in 1893, and that grew to 45 in 1927, which employed 2,875 people here.Tobacco ruled the roost in the county, he said. Tobacco is still a multi-million dollar industry in the county, he noted, though tobacco culture has declined.Rick Smith, a docent at the history museum, listened attentively to the presentation. He grew up on a tobacco farm in Westfield. After the presentation, he asked Yeargin if he could chant like a tobacco auctioneer. Yeargin spoke a little bit about the history of the chant and gave a short demonstration.Smith said afterward, I thought it was very interesting from the aspect of tobacco culture and industry.Smith invited his son, Richard, to attend the lecture. Richard Smith works as a spokesperson for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. He said he came because he obviously has a personal interest in the subject, and he is from a family which grew tobacco.Im always looking to learn more, because history is an important part of what we do, he noted. The RJR employee said he knew about the different types of tobacco, but he learned a lot about the history of the tobacco industry that he did not know prior to the lecture.The museum director also asked several questions after the presentation. Edwards said, I learned a lot.According to information provided by the museum, Yeargin teaches U.S. history at Johnston Community College and Vance-Granville Community College and teaches Southern culture for Osher Lifelong Learning program at Duke University. He was former executive director of the Tobacco Growers Information Committee, was a spokesman for the U.S. Tobacco Growers, was agriculture liaison to former N.C. Governor James Hunt Jr., and created and directed the World Tobacco Auctioneers Championship for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. He has also been executive director of the N.C. Sweet Potato Commission. He graduated from Oak Ridge Military Academy, holds an M.A. in Liberal Studies from Duke University and has studied European history and politics at the University of Oxford. He has published two books on N.C. tobacco culture: North Carolina Tobacco, a History and Remembering North Carolina Tobacco.The History Talks program is a series of history lectures at the museum that take place each third Sunday. The project is made possible in part by a grant from the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide non-profit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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