Harrison Brothers Tobacco

[1] 1898 SanBorn map showing Harrison Brothers tobacco store at No. 3 Commercial Row.

In 1897, brothers James B. and Daniel T. Harrison moved their tobacco store from Jefferson Street to Commercial Row in Huntsville’s Courthouse Square. Commercial Row was the center of Huntsville’s consumer economy and, at the end of the nineteenth century, the Harrison Brothers positioned themselves at the center of change and growth in Huntsville. According to this 1898 Sanborn Fire Insurance Company map, the Harrison Brothers' store at number 3 Commercial Row sold wholesale tobacco.[1] In early daily accounts, the Harrison Brothers primarily sold leaf tobacco to local grocers and store owners. By the end of the nineteenth century, the most popular product at Harrison Brothers and among tobacco consumers in general was cigars. Cigars and tobacco products are considered luxury items and according to Eric Burns were “the badge of the fellow whose time was his own.”[2] The Harrison Brothers tobacco customers were mostly middle and upper-class men. Local businessmen such as Oscar Goldsmith and W.L. Halsey frequented the store and purchased tobacco under their store and personal accounts.[3]     

D.T. Harrison tobacco sales card.

At Harrison Brothers, trust and credit were given to every man that came into the store. In their tobacco sales daily account books, nearly every person was given a customer account, even if they only made one or two purchases at the store. The brothers trusted their middle and upper-class customer base to pay off their debts gradually. Many customers paid off their debts when they sold their crops, usually cotton on Cotton Row, during harvest season from August to October. Customers paid by check, by cash, and sometimes by merchandise.[4] The standard operating procedures of Harrison Brothers made the store valuable to local men, but this status quo drastically changed and pushed away many loyal customers in 1900.

Photograph of Commercial Row on the South-Side of Huntsville's Courthouse Square.

Women were rare customers at Harrison Brothers’ Tobacco. However, there are two notable women that were regular customers and had customer credit accounts. For store owners, credit was a sign of trust and respect for a customer. Lizzie Barclift and Mrs. L.J. Hughes were regulars at Harrison Brothers. Lizzie Barclift was likely a single woman and her customer account was listed under her name. In the Harrison Brothers account books, single women were addressed by their full first name and last name and married women were addressed as Mrs., their husband’s first and middle initial, and their last name. Men were listed by their first and middle initial and their last name. Often women who came into Harrison Brothers purchased items under their name, Mrs. husbands name, but charged purchases to their husbands’ accounts. Mrs. L.J. Hughes’s account was in her name, and she has multiple account pages that show she was a regular customer at the store.[5] Mrs. L.J. Hughes owned two store buildings in the Dallas Mill village and either used Harrison Brothers as a supplier for her store or for personal tobacco use which was unconventional for a woman in the early twentieth century.[6]