Tobacco Rush on the Elbe
Special exhibition of the Dresden City Museum in cooperation with the Chemnitz Museum of Industry
Baroque Florence on the Elbe from a different perspective: as Germany’s tobacco capital, which became the central production site for Oriental cigarettes with such exotically named companies as Jasmatzi, Yenidze, and Xanthi.
Before the First World War, every second cigarette came from Dresden. Even today, the former Yenidze tobacco factory, with its minaret-like towers, recalls this important phase of Saxony’s industrial history.
In cooperation with the Dresden City Museum, the Chemnitz Museum of Industry presented the facets of this then-new industry in Saxony: the development of tobacco consumption in Europe from an exclusive colonial product to the mass-market cigarette; Dresden’s rise as a central production and trading hub; and its role as a leading center for specialized machinery manufacturing. Using the cigarette industry as an example, the exhibition also highlighted the emergence of product advertising and its strategies in the early 20th century. However, Dresden was also an early center of the anti-tobacco movement. By examining these societal negotiation processes, the exhibition traced the topic all the way into the present.