Readers played important role in cigar factories

 

(tbo.com) Tampa's cigar factories were a cacophony of noise. Wagons, and later trucks, were constantly delivering tobacco and picking up cigars. The sorting rooms buzzed with talk of current events, and la galeria , the main cigar-making floor, was awash with the sounds of the cigar makers and the tools of their trade — the chaveta (a rounded knife) — tapping steadily on their cutting boards. Heard over these rhythmic sounds was the voice of el lector , the reader.
The lector was paid by the factory's workers to read to them from local Spanish-language newspapers, such as La Traducción, or translate on the fly English-language papers such as The Tampa Tribune or the Tampa Daily Times. They even read novels, including "Don Quixote," "The Count of Monte Cristo" and "Les Miserables." The lector read while seated on la tribuna , a raised platform, so all of the workers could see and hear him or her. Continued