Abstract
The large-scale migration of the Cuban cigar industry from Cuba, first to Key West, Florida and then to Tampa, Florida, between 1880 and 1900 had a profound effect on the state's economic, social, and political conditions. This move, precipitated by war and economic instability in Cuba, saw cigar manufacturers eager to cut the cost of production, stabilize workforces, and make inroads into distribution and marketing in the United States. The geographic proximity and potential commercial viability of Florida's growing cities provided an alluring base from which to begin this transformation. Many Cuban cigar workers, as eager to escape their war-torn homeland as the manufacturers, decided to emigrate along with the industry and settled in communities surrounding the new cigar manufacturing centers. The integration of these forces (the manufacturing of the cigars and the revenue that that manufacturing generated, along with the arrival of the workers who lived and labored in the area because of the industry's move) into the existing societies in Florida is an important arena for scholarship. The economic and political repercussions of the cigar industry's migration to the state have been well studied, as have many of the social and cultural developments resulting from the interactions of the principal subjects. But important questions remain about many of the more subtle experiences that this move created. How did these immigrant workers interact with themselves and with the outside community? Since their work played so important a role in their relocation, how did this factor into their lives? What social and cultural attitudes did they encounter in Florida that might have been different from those in Cuba?The large-scale migration of the Cuban cigar industry from Cuba, first to Key West, Florida and then to Tampa, Florida, between 1880 and 1900 had a profound effect on the state's economic, social, and political conditions. This move, precipitated by war and economic instability in Cuba, saw cigar manufacturers eager to cut the cost of production, stabilize workforces, and make inroads into distribution and marketing in the United States. The geographic proximity and potential commercial viability of Florida's growing cities provided an alluring base from which to begin this transformation. Many Cuban cigar workers, as eager to escape their war-torn homeland as the manufacturers, decided to emigrate along with the industry and settled in communities surrounding the new cigar manufacturing centers. The integration of these forces (the manufacturing of the cigars and the revenue that that manufacturing generated, along with the arrival of the workers who lived and labored in the area because of the industry's move) into the existing societies in Florida is an important arena for scholarship. The economic and political repercussions of the cigar industry's migration to the state have been well studied, as have many of the social and cultural developments resulting from the interactions of the principal subjects. But important questions remain about many of the more subtle experiences that this move created. How did these immigrant workers interact with themselves and with the outside community? Since their work played so important a role in their relocation, how did this factor into their lives? What social and cultural attitudes did they encounter in Florida that might have been different from those in Cuba?