How did James Buchanan Duke become successful through his cigarette trade?
He got the first license to use an automated cigarette making machine James Buchanan Duke (December 23, 1856 – October 10, 1925) was a U.S. tobacco and electric power industrialist best known for his involvement with Duke University. Born near Durham, North Carolina, his father, Washington Duke (1820-1905), had owned a tobacco company which James B. Duke and his brother Benjamin Newton Duke (1855-1929) took over in the 1880s. Known by the nickname “Buck,” in 1885, James Buchanan Duke acquired an advantageous license to use the first automated cigarette making machine (invented by James Albert Bonsack), and by 1890, Duke controlled 40% of the American cigarette market (then known as pre-rolled tobacco). In that year, Duke consolidated control of his four major competitors under one corporate entity, the American Tobacco Company. Duke then used his monopoly control over the American cigarette market to engage in predatory pricing in the remaining American tobacco markets: plug or chewing
