In 1885, Vincent Martinez Ybor, a Spanish entrepreneur, purchased forty acres east of Tampa and built a company town of tall red-brick factories and small wood-frame houses for the workers. Over the next forty years, this community of cigar-makers from Cuba, Spain, and Italy grew into a thriving industry that made Tampa the Cigar Capital of the World. The urban renewal of the 1960s, however, struck a deathblow to Ybor City; thousands of cigar-makers homes and businesses were leveled by bulldozers, and an interstate highway stormed through the dying neighborhood. The narratives, reflecting a coming-of-age in this colorful community that no longer exists, speak of a kidnapping, a hold-up, a shark attack, a deadly duel, and a murder. A teenager comes to grips with his sexual identity, an activist mother resists Jim Crow laws, and an unexpected baby changes everyones life. In Cigar City Stories, author Emilio Gonzalez-Llanes presents a collection of short stories that provides a snapshot of this lost island in time. Julian stood on that raised platform in the middle of the factory floor, reading to the workers: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Les Miserables, writings of Cervantes, newspapers, and the poems of Jos Marti. He didnt just read the words; he took on the voice and mannerisms of the characters in the novels, like an actor in the theater. Good performances were followed by the sustained thumping roar of two hundred chavetas, or tobacco knives, repeatedly striking the workers tobacco-cutting boards. from El Lector

In 1885, Vincent Martinez Ybor, a Spanish entrepreneur, purchased forty acres east of Tampa and built a company town of tall red-brick factories and small wood-frame houses for the workers. Over the next forty years, this community of cigar-makers from Cuba, Spain, and Italy grew into a thriving industry that made Tampa the "Cigar Capital of the World." The urban renewal of the 1960s, however, struck a deathblow to Ybor City; thousands of cigar-makers' homes and businesses were leveled by bulldozers, and an interstate highway stormed through the dying neighborhood. The narratives, reflecting a coming-of-age in this colorful community that no longer exists, speak of a kidnapping, a hold-up, a shark attack, a deadly duel, and a murder. A teenager comes to grips with his sexual identity, an activist mother resists Jim Crow laws, and an unexpected baby changes everyone's life. In Cigar City Stories, author Emilio Gonzalez-Llanes presents a collection of short stories that provides a snapshot of this lost island in time. Julian stood on that raised platform in the middle of the factory floor, reading to the workers: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Les Miserables, writings of Cervantes, newspapers, and the poems of José Marti. He didn't just read the words; he took on the voice and mannerisms of the characters in the novels, like an actor in the theater. Good performances were followed by the sustained thumping roar of two hundred chavetas, or tobacco knives, repeatedly striking the workers' tobacco-cutting boards. -from "El Lector"

Cigar City: Tales From a 1980s Creative Ghetto, is a collection of linked short stories about the young artists, writers, poets, musicians and actors who inhabited Tampa's Ybor City in the 1980s. Drawn by urban authenticity and cheap rents, they created a surreal, chaotic arts scene set against the backdrop of the empty cigar factories and shotgun shacks of Tampa's immigrant past. Ybor drew international artists like James Rosenquist, Jim Dine and dozens more, and mirrored what was happening in New York's Alphabet City.The stories are fictional but they capture the spirit of the district during the 1980s. The collection is illustrated with photos from the era by Bud Lee and David Audet.

"Complete with a profile index of each known Trafficante family member, Cigar City Mafia shows readers the local factories, bolita gambling houses, and the Hillsborough River. There a new body floated to the surface practically every other day."--Jacket

Florida Historical Society Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Award From the founding of Ybor City in 1886 to the dispersal of Tampa's Latin population in the years following World War II, Tampa's Cigar Workers documents the history of the Cuban, Spanish, and Italian immigrants who created the cigar industry in Tampa and the extraordinary multi-ethnic community that flourished around it. More than 200 photos capture this community's personalities and way of life while commentary drawn from newspaper accounts, oral histories, and archival documents identifies and explains each photograph's historical place and significance. In linking the photographs with historical text, the authors allow the cigar workers to tell their own story, in the language of their day.  The rich photographic record around which the book is organized communicates the lives of these workers not only in the workplace but also in their vibrant Ybor City and West Tampa neighborhoods. The book depicts the making of cigars, the work culture, local support for the Cuban War of Independence (1895-1898), unions and strikes, community institutions such as mutual aid clubs, leisure activities, and social practices surrounding courtship, marriage, and death. Highlighting the diversity of the cigar workers' community, the authors present an inspiring and deeply moving story of how these immigrants carved out their space in Tampa while struggling to survive economically and defending their ideals and way of life.

Two women kept apart by segregation at a Southern cigar factory forge a powerful alliance in the labor rights movement in this historical novel. With evocative dialect and remarkable prose, The Cigar Factory tells the story of two entwined families—the white McGonegals and the African American Ravenels—in the storied port city of Charleston, South Carolina, during the World Wars. Moore’s novel follows the parallel lives of family matriarchs working on segregated floors of the massive Charleston cigar factory, where white and black workers remain divided and misinformed about the duties and treatment received by each other. Cassie McGonegal and her niece Brigid work upstairs in the factory rolling cigars by hand. Meliah Amey Ravenel works in the basement, where she stems the tobacco. While both suffer in the harsh working conditions of the factory and endure the sexual harassment of the foremen, segregation keeps them from recognizing their common plight until the Tobacco Workers Strike of 1945. Through the experience of a brutal picket line, the two women discover how much they stand to gain by joining forces, creating a powerful moment in labor history that gives rise to the Civil Rights anthem, “We Shall Overcome.” Moore’s historical research includes interviews with family members who worked at the cigar factory, adding nuance and authenticity to her empowering story of struggle, loss, and redemption. Foreword by New York Times best-selling author Pat Conroy Winner of the 2016 David J. Langum, Sr. Prize