 |
In 1898, when the Spanish-American War brought Cuba under
United States control, American firms began to dominate island industries,
including the cigar trade. The explosion of entrepreneurship in the cigar
industry just after the turn of the century led to the issuance of the Cuban
Warranty Seal in 1912 to try to bring some sanity to the proliferation of
brands styles and sizes in the 1920 s, the indtroduction of the cigar making
machine in the Por Larranaga factory led to a crisis in the industry, as
rollers saw their jobs threatened.
A boycott of the machine-made products led to the removal of the machines
until after World War II, but the American companies interested in this
technology begun importing Cuban leaf into the U.S for production there
instead of in Havana. These cigars, made of all Cuban tobacco, were known
as "Clear Havanas".
After the war, the popularity of Cuban cigars was reinvigorated by the image
of the cigar-loving British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and by machine-made
cigars, which satisfied the European desire for inexpensive smokes from
Havana. With its markets restored, the cigar industry moved ahead untill
1959, when the Cuban Revolution changed the political situation and the
tobacco industry was nationalized. |
