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Murad Cigarettes -- tobacco silk, c. 1910; image of University of Michigan rowing crew member

by amy

Michigan Rowing

Silks like this one were inserted as souvenir premiums in early cigarette packages. Sometimes the smoker's sweetheart would sew a dozen or more together, to make a decorative cover for a throw pillow.

(The founding date of the U of M, given as 1837 on the seal reproduced here, in 1929 was corrected to 1817, the date of the progenitor institution's founding in the city of Detroit, in Michigan Territory.)

Submitted by Wystan Stevens

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