Tabacalera: The Royal Factory of the Cigar Girls
Why is it significant?
Take in the length of this façade: granite and brick, rows of plain windows, a sober Neoclassical front that runs on and on along Calle de Embajadores. It looks like a barracks or a ministry. In fact, for almost two hundred years it was the noisiest, most female workplace in Madrid.
Key Facts
| Place | Tabacalera: The Royal Factory of the Cigar Girls |
|---|---|
| Address | Calle de Embajadores 51, 28012 Madrid, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 40.40630, -3.70310 |
| Part of Walk | Tapas, Tripe and the Sunday Rastro: La Latina & Lavapiés, Madrid's Old Popular Quarters |
| Generated | Generated |
Take in the length of this façade: granite and brick, rows of plain windows, a sober Neoclassical front that runs on and on along Calle de Embajadores. It looks like a barracks or a ministry. In fact, for almost two hundred years it was the noisiest, most female workplace in Madrid.
It was built in the 1780s, under King Charles the Third, as the Real Fábrica de Aguardientes y Naipes, the Royal Factory of Spirits and Playing Cards. Both were royal monopolies, both were very profitable, and both were rather popular in a neighbourhood like this one. In 1809 the building was converted into a tobacco factory, and the name Tabacalera stuck to it ever since.
Inside worked the cigarreras, the cigar girls. At its height, thousands of women sat at long tables rolling cigars and, later, cigarettes, many of them bringing their babies to work. They were famous for their sharp tongues, their solidarity and their tempers. More than once in the nineteenth century they rose up in protest against pay cuts and new machines, and the authorities learned to treat the cigarreras with caution. If you know Carmen, the opera heroine who works in a tobacco factory in Seville, you have met their sister.
All those workers had to eat. The streets around filled with casas de comidas, simple eating houses with a fixed menu, a jug of wine and a pot of stew on the fire from early morning. That tradition, the menú del día, a cheap set lunch of two courses, bread, drink and dessert, still feeds working Madrid every weekday.
The factory closed in 2000. Part of the building now hosts exhibitions run by the Ministry of Culture, while another part became a self-managed social centre covered in murals. Now walk north up Calle de Embajadores, past the Mercado de San Fernando, the neighbourhood market, and turn right along Calle de Sombrerete into the little square behind it.