James Albert Bonsack, discovering the origins of the rolling machine

The rolling machine was a genuine revolution in the world of tobacco. But do you know who we owe this innovation to? Here is a short article looking in detail at the origins of the rolling machine.

Meeting a growing demand

Did you know? Cigarettes used to be rolled in two ways: either by hand or industrially. Although the automated process was faster, it still could not keep up with an ever-growing demand.

To avoid losing too much money, a manufacturer in Richmond came up with the idea of launching a kind of competition, offering a prize to anyone able to invent a faster system for rolling cigarettes.

Towards a small revolution in the tobacco trade

James Albert Bonsack, a young American inventor of 21, heard about the competition and decided to take up the challenge. He worked hard for several weeks to develop a prototype machine capable of rolling cigarettes automatically and very quickly.

Just as he had almost finished building his rolling machine, a fire swept through his workshop and destroyed it completely. Far from feeling sorry for himself or giving up, the young James Albert Bonsack got straight back to work. From September 1880, he filed a patent for his machine and submitted it to the Richmond company.

The first industrial rolling machine

And so, in 1880, the first industrial rolling machine was created. It could produce 200 cigarettes a minute, a total of 120,000 cigarettes a day at full capacity. James Albert Bonsack entered the history of the tobacco industry at just 21 years old.

Thanks to his machine, he also handed a monopoly to James Buchanan Duke, the head of the American Tobacco Company.