Calle de las Cigarreras

The name recalls a trade with a woman’s face. The cigarreras rolled cigars and ground snuff at the Royal Tobacco Factory on nearby Calle de Embajadores, opened in 1809 with eight hundred workers. By around 1890 they numbered more than six thousand and formed the first great female industry in Spain. Their fame came from their spirit. When management pushed mechanization from 1887 on, they answered with strikes and riots to defend their jobs. In working-class Madrid it was said that no strike prospered unless the cigarreras joined it. They worked endless shifts, so the factory allowed mothers to step out to nurse and kept a day nursery for their children. The factory remained on Calle de Embajadores, now a cultural center, while the street map preserved the memory of those workers here, in Las Acacias.