2019 NEH Summer Institute, The Center for José Martí Studies Affiliate at the University of Tampa: “Ybor City Lives: Wars, Revolutions, Great Depression, Great Society, Urban Renewal, and Americanization” with Gary Mormino
Date
2019-07-09
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The University of Tampa
Abstract
For more than four decades, my life has been intimately involved and intertwined with Ybor City.
The enclave remains the most interesting place I have ever encountered. Upon arriving in 1977,
I began interviewing elderly immigrants who had rolled cigars in the factories, endured the sting
of protracted labor strikes and the heartbreak of urban renewal. My illustrated talk will review
the most significant challenges in 20th-century Ybor City. The decades between 1900 and 1930
represented the golden age of Ybor City. Hundreds of cigar factories made Tampa synonymous
with hand-rolled Puro Habana cigars. Around ten thousand Cuban, Spanish, and Italian
immigrants created one of America’s most distinctive ethnic enclaves. Immigrants constructed
some of Florida’s most beautiful and functional mutual aid societies. There, immigrants enjoyed
cradle-to-grave benefits: social solidarity, cultural entertainment, and the benefits of cooperative
medicine. A fiercely militant and left-leaning labor movement thrived. The decade of the 1930s
and 1940s shattered the colony’s insularity and optimism. The Great Depression ravaged the
cigar industry while the Spanish Civil War augured the future. World War II took away thousands
of young, second-generation men and women. It was Ybor City’s finest hour, but also signified a
roll call. Veterans and their wives did not wish to return to Ybor City; many moved to the
burgeoning suburbs. The history of Ybor City in the decades after 1950 is a story of assimilation,
Americanization, urban renewal, urban and cultural revival.
Description
Please click on YouTube Video link above to stream the presentation.
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Keywords
Ybor City (Tampa, Fla.), Cigar industry--Florida--Tampa--History, Cuban Immigrants, Spanish immigrants, Italian immigrants, Tabaqueros