Louisville and the tobacco trade within the Atlantic World.

This thesis uses the Campbell Company of Louisville as a case study to demonstrate how tobacco from Kentucky moved throughout the Atlantic World of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, specifically as an export commodity to major trading firms in England and France. Those trading firms, such as John Holt & Company of Liverpool, used that tobacco to engage in trade through West Africa and to obtain the commodities of palm oil and palm kernel that were valuable as factory lubricants, soap, and margarine in Europe’s industrial society. Charles Campbell of the Campbell Company used social ties and personal relationships with people such as the Maxwell family of Liverpool to further his business ventures across the Atlantic as his personal letters and business records help to illuminate. This work will contribute to various fields, particularly local Louisville history, as it demonstrates how even Louisville-based companies contributed to and benefited from colonial economies resulting from European colonization efforts in West Africa and other parts of the Atlantic World