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Lorillard Tobacco Company

American manufacturer of tobacco products; historically issued trading cards

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 3, 2026
Entity authorityQ3259566
Source-derived summary

Lorillard Tobacco Company was an American tobacco company that marketed cigarettes under the brand names Newport, Maverick, Old Gold, Kent, True, Satin, and Max. The company had two operating segments: cigarettes and electronic cigarettes.

The company was purchased by Reynolds American, a company owned by British American Tobacco, in 2015, a deal that was announced in 2014.

History

The company was founded by Pierre Abraham Lorillard in 1760. In 1899, the American Tobacco Company organized a New Jersey corporation called the Continental Tobacco Company, which took a controlling interest in many small tobacco companies. By 1910, James Buchanan Duke controlled Lorillard and the American Tobacco Company, even though Lorillard kept its original name. In 1911, the U.S. Court of Appeals found the American Tobacco Company "in restraint of trade" and issued a dissolution decree to the American Tobacco Company, which forced Lorillard to become an independent company again. In the same year, Lorillard purchased the Murad brand.

In 1925, Lorillard underwent a significant transition after Benjamin Lloyd Belt became president. Having been with the company since 1911, Belt made some decisions that made the company profitable.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Lorillard Tobacco Company” is american manufacturer of tobacco products; historically issued trading cards. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Lorillard, Tobacco and Company, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2015, 2014, 1760, 1899—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1760. For this dossier, Lorillard, Tobacco and Company is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american manufacturer of tobacco products; historically issued trading cards” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3259566. VIAF identifies the subject as 152908049. The Library of Congress control number is nr2004035534. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2015, 2014, 1760 and 1899.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Lorillard Tobacco Company”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Lorillard Tobacco Company primary sources, Lorillard Tobacco Company archive and Lorillard research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Lorillard Tobacco Company” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.