Walk into a cigar factory in Ybor City in the early years of the twentieth century and you would have heard the familiar sounds of the trade: tobacco leaves being handled, chavetas striking cutting boards, chairs shifting against wooden floors. And above it all, a voice.
It might have been reading the morning newspaper. Later, perhaps politics or philosophy. By afternoon, the workers might be listening to a chapter from a novel by Cervantes, Dickens, Hugo, Zola or Tolstoy.
The man delivering the words was known as el lector, the reader, and he occupied one of the most remarkable positions in American cigar history.
The Lector Turned the Cigar Factory Into a Classroom
Ybor City grew around the cigar industry after Vicente Martinez-Ybor moved his cigar operations to Tampa in the 1880s. Cuban, Spanish, Italian and other immigrants followed, and cigar manufacturing transformed the community into one of the world’s great centers of hand-rolled cigar production.
The workers brought more than their cigar-making skills with them. Cuban cigar workers also brought the tradition of la lectura, reading aloud during the workday.
The lector sat above the factory floor on an elevated platform, or tribuna, where his voice could carry across rows of cigar makers. There were no microphones or speakers. A successful lector needed a powerful voice, clear pronunciation and enough presence to hold the attention of a room filled with workers. Importantly, the lector generally didn’t work for the factory owner. He worked for the cigar makers.
Workers selected their lector, chose what they wanted him to read and contributed from their own wages to pay him. The National Park Service records that workers in Ybor City commonly contributed about 25 cents per week toward the lector’s salary. (National Park Service). That distinction gave the lector an unusual degree of independence.
The reading changed throughout the day. Mornings frequently began with newspapers. The workers heard local news along with reports concerning Cuba, Spain and events elsewhere in the world. Political writings and discussions of labor issues also found their way onto the lector’s platform.
Later came literature. Classic novels could be read serially over days or weeks, allowing workers to follow a story while their hands continued the practiced motions of making cigars.
The selections were not merely background entertainment. The lector could read dramatically, giving characters different voices and bringing scenes to life. The National Park Service describes lectores reading with theatrical enthusiasm from their elevated platforms. (National Park Service)
For workers who had received little formal education, la lectura created something extraordinary: hours of exposure to literature, politics, history and current events without leaving the workbench. The cigar factory had become a kind of workingman’s university.
The Cigar Makers Chose What They Heard
The democratic nature of the lector system was part of what made it unusual. The workers weren’t simply listening to whatever management decided to provide. They had a say in the material.
One day the factory might hear political commentary. Another might bring international news. Then the lector could return to a novel that had captured the room’s imagination. That created a workforce unusually engaged with events beyond Tampa.
Cigar makers discussed politics. They debated labor. They followed events in their homelands. They became familiar with major works of literature. The National Park Service notes that the lectores contributed to a workforce that was both well informed and politically active. (National Park Service)
The tradition also connected directly to Ybor City’s role in Cuban history. José Martí visited the community while building support for Cuban independence, and patriotic newspapers and political information circulated through the cigar factories. (National Park Service)
A person could spend the entire day making cigars and, at the same time, hear ideas arriving from Havana, Madrid, New York and beyond.
Lectores and Labor
Factory owners did not always share the workers’ enthusiasm for la lectura. Literature was one thing. Labor politics were another.
The same lector who could entertain a factory with a novel could also read about strikes, working conditions, political movements and organized labor. Workers could then discuss what they had heard with hundreds of people sitting around them. From management’s perspective, the lector wasn’t simply educating workers. He could be helping organize them.
Some factory owners blamed lectores for encouraging union activity and political agitation. Following labor unrest in 1920, some cigar manufacturers refused to allow lectores to return to their factories. The conflict continued, and in 1931 lectores were banned from Tampa’s cigar factories. (National Park Service). The voice above the factory floor went silent.
One of Ybor City’s former lectores, Victoriano Manteiga, found another way to reach the community. In 1922, he founded La Gaceta, a newspaper published in English, Spanish and Italian. The paper became another expression of the same multilingual, politically engaged culture that had flourished around Ybor City’s cigar factories. (National Park Service). The lector’s chair may have disappeared from the working factory, but the idea behind it survived. Knowledge belonged to everyone.
More Than a Cigar
Today, we tend to talk about premium cigars in terms of tobacco. Wrapper. Binder. Filler. Country of origin. Fermentation. Aging. Construction. But cigar history is also human history.
For the men and women sitting at the rolling tables of Ybor City, making cigars was skilled work. And for a few hours every day, that work existed alongside literature, journalism, political debate and storytelling.
A cigar maker could begin the morning hearing news from Cuba and spend the afternoon following the characters of a great novel, all without stopping the work of turning leaves into finished cigars. There is something fitting about that. A handmade cigar has always demanded a bit of time. time. For the cigar makers of old Ybor City, that time wasn’t wasted. They filled it with ideas.