Bonsack Machine and Operator, ca. 1880s James Bonsack invented the first cigarette rolling machine in 1880, but it was James Buchanan Duke who used it to mechanize cigarette manufacturing. Until then, a worker could hand roll a few hundred cigarettes a day; the Bonsack machine turned out that many each minute. By 1888, machines had entirely replaced hand rollers.
Courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.