labor and tobacco leaf caused U.S. tobacco companies to invest in mechanized methods of producing cigarettes and cigars. The first cigarette rolling machine was introduced in 1880 by James Albert Bonsack, while the cigar-making machine first appeared in 1889. As demand for cigarettes increased, consumption of hand-rolled cigars declined, which directly affected CMIU members. Mechanization and unskilled cigar workers (known as "bunch breakers") increasingly replaced skilled cigar workers after World War I. Strangely, George Perkins and the CMIU leadership declined to organize semi-skilled and unskilled machine workers despite overwhelming evidence that traditional cigar-making was in steep decline; an estimated 56,000 jobs were lost between 1921 and 1935. Scores of union factories went out of business, while the remainder declared an open shop. By 1928, the CMIU lost much of its influence; the average CMIU member was now sixty-four years old. In that year, CMIU's leadership finally agreed to unionize machine cigar workers and permit the union label on machine-finished cigars, but it was too late. The Great Depression resulted in additional industry cost-cutting. By 1933, CMIU membership had declined to 15,000 members, many of them unemployed. In 1931, the American Cigar Co., the only USA-based cigar factory still using hand-rolling techniques, ceased manufacture. After World War II, the consolidation of cigar manufacturing in the United States continued; many of the remaining larger manufacturing concerns moved cigar production to Central America and South America, which only accelerated the loss of union jobs. In 1974, the remaining 2,000 members of the CMIU voted to merge with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Notable members Presidents 1864: Andrew Zeitler 1865: L. C. Walker 1867: John J. Junbo 1868: Fred Bland 1871: Edwin Johnson 1872: William H. Noerr 1873: William J. Cannon 1875: George Hurst 1877: Adolph Strasser 1891: George W. Perkins 1927: Ira M. Ornburn 1936: R. E. Van Horn 1944: A. P. Bower 1949: Mario Azpeitia Other members J. Mahlon Barnes, Executive Secretary of the Socialist Party of America John J. Ballam, Communist Party Central Executive Committee member and union organizer Samuel Gompers, longtime President of the AF of L, was a National Vice President of the CMIU and President of Local 144 John Kirchner, Secretary of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions Footnotes Further reading Patricia A. Cooper, Once a Cigar Maker: Men, Women, and Work Culture in American Cigar Factories, 1900-1919. Urbana: Illinois University Press, 1987. G.W.