A History Of Hookah In The United States

[Chaz1337]

Ladies and gentlemen of our pleasurable hobby,

I have been smoking hookah for over three years now thanks to the seriousness and passion that the many members here have injected in this forum. I have become equally as serious and passionate about my hookah hobby. I am a history major at Auburn University (War Damn Eagle!) and as a part of my senior thesis I have begun the long, arduous and what has proved to be difficult endeavor to quite literally write the book on the history of Hookah emergence and use in the United States. I am quite familiar with the history of hookah itself but my quest to dig up sources on the emergence of hookah in the US has proved quite difficult. Basically what I am asking of you good folks is for any leads which may be: books, articles, interviews, speeches, anything really that relates to hookah or water pipe use in America preferably in the time period from 1880's-1980's. Fellow students at other universities you could help me immensely by simply typing into your library's catalog search "History of Hookah" or a keyword search like "America (and) Hookah"

I see this as my chance to help give back to the hookah community in a little way that I can and any help, questions or advice you have about my project would be greatly appreciated. I might also be looking to do some interviews with business/ lounge owners about their experience about they got into the hookah industry, or where and how they learned about hookah.

Thanks again guys and happy smoking!

[Andrew Roome]

I did some research, and basically came up with nothing as well. The only source I found that might be relevant is: [b]Tobacco in history and [b]culture[/b] : an encyclopedia / Jordan Goodman[/b]


Hope it helps!

[Chaz1337]

Added to list of sources! Good find!

[Hassouni]

I'll tell you this - flavored wet tobacco didn't exist (on a widespread scale anyway) until Nakhla began producing it in the 1980s. Before this, nargile smoking was seen as the province of old men, and it's unlikely that there were more than a handful of smokers before then, probably only limited to the older generation in Arab communities

[Chaz1337]

[quote name='Hassouni' timestamp='1319733368' post='529101'] I'll tell you this - flavored wet tobacco didn't exist (on a widespread scale anyway) until Nakhla began producing it in the 1980s. Before this, nargile smoking was seen as the province of old men, and it's unlikely that there were more than a handful of smokers before then, probably only limited to the older generation in Arab communities [/quote]

Yeah, much of the research I have been doing has lead me to much the same conclusion although its not as much the tobacco that I'm researching but the emergence of a "hookah culture" or what could be interpreted in recent years as an upsurge of the popularity of hookah and that is the primary reason why I'm trying to look back in US history to the earliest mentions of hookah in the United States to determine a sort of starting point in Hookah history in the United States.

[Hassouni]

Well, prob some use in the counterculture starting in the 60s (if not earlier) with NHT, but as far as our hookah culture goes, It's been about a decade, maybe a bit more, since it really started taking off