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Tampa, Florida. Cigarmakers in the factory of Filogamo & Alvarez, January 1909. View full size. Photograph by Lewis Wickes Hine. This part of Tampa is the now fashionably upscale Ybor City district, where many of the old cigar factories have been repurposed as apartments, condos and gallery spaces. Starbucks, anyone?
My daughter thought the boys on the left were texting on their mobile phones.
Yeah, they seem to be troughs. Probably to catch the tobacco scraps to roll into more cigars or to sell to cigarette makers.
What do you suppose the strips of fabric across the front of the worktables were for? Did they extend further down? They kinda seem part of a trough built into the tabletop, but I can't tell for sure.
"How do I get to the Susquehanna Hat Company?"
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