3 min read
The Cigarette and the Steelworker: Heavy Industry and the Culture of Smoking
Steelworkers and other heavy-industry workers smoke at elevated rates—a legacy of the industrial era when smoking was permitted on the factory floor and the cigarette was part of the working-class identity.
The steel mill of the mid-20th century was a haze of cigarette smoke—workers smoking on the job, ashtrays on every surface. Workplace bans have eliminated the smoke—but the culture persists. Smoking rates among industrial workers remain elevated. **The cigarette was part of the working-class identity forged in the industrial era. The mills have closed or been cleaned up. The identity—and the smoking that accompanies it—persists.**
