The document summarizes an exhibit on the history of tobacco use from its origins among indigenous peoples in the Americas to its modern form as a mass-market consumer product and public health issue. It traces tobacco's introduction to Europe, its cultivation and commercialization in the American colonies and the origins of major tobacco companies in the 1800s. It then details the development of the modern cigarette industry in the late 19th century, the rise of mass marketing in the 1900s, and the growing scientific evidence and public health responses to the health hazards of smoking from the 1950s onward.