| Abstract |
C. Stuart Carr first discusses the effect of the Depression on tobacco farmers in Eastern North Carolina. Right after joining Ficklen Tobacco Co., Carr spent six months in Shanghai, China, becoming familiar with Carolina Leaf Tobacco Co. He describes the competition between the companies, selling to the Chinese manufacturing companies, and the turmoil in China in 1938 with a strong Japanese presence. For much of the remainder of the interview, Carr details life in China for company employees and their families (p. 9), and discusses at length the business of American companies selling tobacco in China. Carr notes the increasing presence of the Japanese in 1941 and that B.A.T. employees left in China after the attack on Pearl Harbor were detained in concentration camps before being exchanged for Japanese prisoners (pp. 18-19). He left China in 1941 shortly before Pearl Harbor was bombed. He also mentions how Universal lost all their assets with the takeover of the Communists after World War II. From a period of a high volume market, the war signaled a substantially reduced market with no foreign exchange for tobacco (pp. 19-20). On a more contemporary note, Mr. Carr discusses the Thai people, their position in the tobacco market, and the switching of tobacco after it is sold (pp. 24-25). He also mentions an arrangement to have American cigarettes made in China for tourists by Reynolds and Phillip Morris (ca. 1980) and the monopoly these manufacturers will have. Two short papers by Carr are included. The "Thailand Travel Account" (1964) concerns the Chiengmai section of Thailand where Virginia flue-cured tobacco is grown. The curing, sorting, and grading of tobacco are discussed. A similar paper on "Tobacco Activities in China" fills in some of the descriptions of Shanghai in the 1930s especially of the International Settlement, notes the rampant inflation of the 1940s, and describes how the American tobacco companies in China were administered. |
| General note | Interviewer: Donald R. Lennon. Interview date: September 15, 1980. |
| Access restriction | No access restrictions. |
| Cite as |
C. Stuart Carr, Special Collections Department, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA. |
| Terms of use | Literary rights to specific documents are retained by the authors or their descendants in accordance with U.S. copyright law. |
| Acquisitions source |
Joyner- Gift of C. Stuart Carr, Jr. |
| Biographical note | C. Stuart Carr, Jr. was born in Greenville, N.C., in 1910 and raised in Norfolk, Va. He returned to Greenville at the beginning of the Depression and worked at the Greenville Fertilizer Company selling fertilizer at retail prices to farmers and loaning them cash. He then worked with the E. B. Ficklen Tobacco Company in Greenville (1938-1950) with responsibility for the Carolina Leaf Tobacco Company, a joint operation of Ficklen Tobacco Company and the G. R. Garrett Company of Rocky Mount, N.C. Carolina Leaf sold American tobacco to Chinese manufacturers. In 1950, Carr went to E. V. Webb and Co. in Kinston, N.C., staying with them until he left in 1956 to work for Universal Leaf Tobacco Co. in Richmond, VA. Carr remained with Universal until he retired in 1975. He died in Richmond, VA, on December 6, 1997. |
