The Immigrant World of Ybor City: Italians and Their Latin Neighbors in Tampa

Labor Day Cigars

(York Daily Record) When I was about 10 ... I used to sell crab cakes and fish for a man down Mason Alley. ... I used to go to a place out on Poplar Street and Dewey Street in West York called T.E. Brooks cigar factory, and they were not allowed to have breaks back then. They worked constantly for their eight hours. Anything they needed was right there where they worked. . . . I went to a lot of different factories doing this job selling crab cakes and fish . . . all around York on my bicycle, but T.E. Brooks cigar factory always stands out to me because I (had) to go from person to person. Any of the other factories, they came to me during their break time, but this place here did not have a break. . . . That always stood out in my mind.
Steven A. Hatterer, 46, of York

I was raised one mile below Red Lion off Route 74. I very well remember the cigar factories in Red Lion. They had quite a few, but the thing that I remember mostly was we had a strike (in 1934), and a man was blinded during the strike (reportedly because tear gas was fired by police), and in 1935, he had a Ford coupe . . . and I bought that from him for $150. The man was from Windsor that was blinded. A friend of mine told me about this man that became blinded, and he had a Ford coupe, and I borrowed the money from my father and bought it.
Mildred Knisely, 92, Springettsbury Township

Alec Bradley Feeds Honduras Cigar Workers Through Coronavirus Crisis

(Cigar Aficionado) ... In order to help the workers responsible for producing their cigars in Honduras, Alec Bradley is determined to feed 700 families of four throughout a 30-day span. The Raices Cubanas factory, which produces most of Alec Bradley’s brands, is located in Danlí, a lush, mountainous region known for its cigarmaking. Through its connections in the area, the company was able to purchase all staples needed from a local food distributor. This included eggs, rice, corn, beans, oil, sugar, hygiene products and more. Continued

Martin Luther King and Connecticut Tobacco

 

(Simsbury Historical Society) Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia January 15, 1929. He took a test at the end of his junior year in high school to gain early admission to Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. It was this summer, 1944, at the age of 15 he came north with a group of Morehouse students to work for the Cullman Brothers in their Simsbury area shade tobacco fields. (He returned to Simsbury to work for Cullman Bros. again in 1947 between his junior and senior years at Morehouse.) Continued

A Labor Day Smoke: The Hobo Cigar Connection

 

(Firecured) Why would a hobo smoke cigars? It never made any sense to me, that a traveling migrant worker, which is what most of them were, would smoke something so ill-suited to such a hard lifestyle, but that's how they are always depicted. Finally, I think I found an answer in Patricia A. Cooper's book, "Once a Cigar Maker: Men, Women, and Work Culture in American Cigar Factories, 1900 - 1919."
"The cigar maker," wrote one lifelong observer of the CMIU, "is a wanderer." The description was simple but accurate. ... Travel also acted as a sort of rite of passage. This was especially true of hoboing. Most traveling was not hoboing, but everyone was expected to try it at least once. "I don't know why we did," remarked Ograin, but you had to take a hobo trip. If you didn't hobo - why they used to say, 'all right. You're through with your apprenticeship. Now go out and learn the trade.'"

 

The Hobo Cigar Connection

(Firecured) Why would a hobo smoke cigars? It never made any sense to me, that a traveling migrant worker, which is what most of them were, would smoke something so ill-suited to such a hard lifestyle, but that's how they are always depicted. Finally, I think I found an answer in Patricia A. Cooper's book, "Once a Cigar Maker: Men, Women, and Work Culture in American Cigar Factories, 1900 - 1919."
"The cigar maker," wrote one lifelong observer of the CMIU, "is a wanderer." The description was simple but accurate. ... Travel also acted as a sort of rite of passage. This was especially true of hoboing. Most traveling was not hoboing, but everyone was expected to try it at least once. "I don't know why we did," remarked Ograin, but you had to take a hobo trip. If you didn't hobo - why they used to say, 'all right. You're through with your apprenticeship. Now go out and learn the trade.'"

Iconic Detroit Building of the Week: Globe Tobacco Building

 

(detroitcurbed.com) In 1871, O. P. Hazard, Thomas McGraw, Hiram Walker, and William Moore founded the Globe Tobacco Company. The city actually relied heavily on tobacco in the late 19th century—at one point, it was Detroit's largest industry. Continued

Norfolk threatens demolition for historic cigar factory as developer misses deadlines

 

(HamptonRoads.com) ... The American Cigar Company structure is one of the last remnants of local black heritage. In the early 1900s, hundreds of black women worked there in a "stemmery," removing stems from tobacco leaves for the purpose of making cigars. Continued

What It’s Like to Be a Tobacco Farmer: Photos From Around the World

 

(Slate) In the late 1990s, as Sarah Hazlegrove’s family stopped growing tobacco for the first time in 200 years, her immediate reaction was to start photographing the Virginia family farm she knew and loved. Though Forkland Farm’s history with tobacco had special resonance for her, she knew its departure from the cash crop wasn’t a unique phenomenon and that many family tobacco operations around the world were slipping away as commercial enterprises increasingly dominated.
In the years since, she’s visited family farms throughout the United States, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Malawi, Indonesia, and Cuba to document the people who still grow the plant the way she knew growing up. Continued

What's in the attic? Tramp art

Tramp art frame with photo of the maker.
Picture courtesy of Tramperguy via Wikipedia.

(Greensburg Daily News) In the era immediately following the Civil War, many were hard pressed to secure employment. As a result both men and women were often forced to travel from town to town in search of work. These people, often referred to as “tramps,” would sometimes exchange items they had handcrafted for food and shelter.
... Early pieces took many forms, mostly functional, but some purely aesthetic. Picture frames, elaborate trinket boxes, doll houses and even full-sized furniture pieces were produced from cigar boxes and wood from disassembled crates. Continued

Reynolds American, Inc (RAI) Draws Fire As Tobacco Farm Workers Decry Labor Conditions

 

(International Business Times) ... Hundreds of farm laborers and their supporters rallied in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, this week at the annual shareholder meeting of Reynolds America, Inc., owner of popular cigarette brands such as Camel, Kool and American Spirit.
... Tobacco workers often grapple with poor housing, low wages and unsafe working conditions. Many are foreigners who come on temporary H-2A work visas. Some are lured by false promises and even pay third-party contractors for placement in the tobacco fields, as documented in a joint report issued by FLOC and Oxfam in 2011. Continued

Renowned Woraiyur Cigar looking to Govt for support

 

(PTI) The production of renowned double wrapper cigars manufactured in Woraiyur, once the capital of the Chozha Kingdom, is witnessing a slowdown.
Sanku Pillai, who had embarked upon manufacture of double wrapper cigars said that the once over 3000 persons were engaged in its production and now it has come down to 100. Continued

Gallaher tobacco jobs rescue plan rejected

 

(Belfast Telegraph) A proposal to save more than half of the 900 jobs set to be lost through the closure of a cigarette factory in Northern Ireland has been rejected.
The JTI Gallaher plant at Lisnafillan near Ballymena, Co Antrim, has fallen victim to a restructuring programme being implemented by its Japanese owners Japan Tobacco International (JTI).
The closure was announced last year but union Unite and management had tabled joint proposals that would have seen 500 jobs retained by turning the factory into a centre for pouch tobacco and cigar manufacturing. Continued

Weekly Cigar Tip: Cigar Catering?

 

(Cigar Aficionado) I am running an event and thought booking a master cigar roller to roll and distribute handmade cigars to the guests would be a nice touch. Do you know of anyone who does this? Continued

JTI ponders union move to save 500 jobs at Gallaher's in Ballymena

(Telegraph) Cigarette maker JTI has said it is considering a trade union proposal which could save 500 jobs at the troubled Gallaher's in Ballymena.
... A spokesman for Japanese firm JTI said it had formed a 'working group' with representatives from Unite. The group would "share and consider all the commercial numbers that underpin the proposal, enabling counter-proposals to be formulated and tabled". Continued

Union proposal to save 500 jobs at Gallaher's: Ballymena cigarette factory to close by 2017

 

(Telegraph) Plans to save some 500 jobs at Ballymena cigarette factory JTI Gallaher's have been put forward by the UK's biggest trade union.
Unite's proposal for the Japanese-owned Lisnafillan plant would see it become a 'centre of excellence for pouch tobacco and cigar production'.
Last month it was announced that 876 jobs were set to go at the Ballymena plant - which has been producing tobacco for more than 150 years. Continued

Photo: archiseek.com

 

Tobacco growers say “no” on child labor

Ora Fugate, 10 years old worming tobacco. They said they do not worm in middle of day when hot, but work right through when "suckering." (Lewis Hine, Library of Congress)

(Southeast Farm Press) Child labor on tobacco farms became quite a controversial issue in 2014, and two organizations of tobacco farmers took a stand objecting to any use of hired child labor in leaf production.
At the beginning of October, the Tobacco Growers Association of North Carolina went on record as opposing hired child labor on U.S. tobacco farms. Continued

Kentucky Tobacco: 10 years after the buyout

 

(courier-journal.com) Tucked in the southeast corner of Jefferson County along Routt Road, Calvin Shake looks like a man with a long way to go, a storm on the horizon and a deadline past due.
"You can't hang it when it's wet so we've got to get as much done as we can today," Shake, 59, stout in build and a shuffle in his step, says as he climbs in and shuts the door to his pickup.
For many tobacco farmers around the state, the door on tobacco shut 10 years ago. Continued

Tobacco days: Working on the farm in flue cured tobacco

 

(thepostsearchlight.com) ... There was a sound of the farmer’s steps crunching the young grass as he made footprints in the early morning dew on his way to the barn to care for the animals. With the wonder of God’s creation about to burst forth before him, he whispered to the morning air, “God has given us a fine day for gathering the third crop of tobacco.”

A much needed short rain shower the afternoon before had left a wet field for gathering what was called flue cured tobacco, but he knew this would make it cooler for the young school boys to prime or crop the large leaves. Teenage schoolboys and girls worked on the tobacco farms going all week from one farmer to another making their spending money and money for school supplies and clothes come that fall. Continued

Ballymena cigarette factory JTI Gallaher to close

 

(BBC) Cigarette maker JTI Gallaher is to shut its factory in County Antrim with the loss of more than 800 jobs. Workers at the Ballymena plant were informed by management on Tuesday.
North Antrim MP Ian Paisley Jr said it was a "body blow" to the Northern Ireland economy. Continued