Album Geográfico Universal
Published in 1936 by La Tabacalera Cubana S.A. for Cuban teachers and students.
Cubans have historically always shown a particular commitment to education. It comes from a principle that a top-quality education can overcome Cuba's poverty, ignorance and underdevelopment.
This idea has certainly found its place in the tobacco industry, one of the largest on the island, as it has been engaged in education since the early nineteenth century. Indeed, the Partagás factory, founded by Jaime Partagás Ravelo, was the first to use a "lector". The goal of this practice, which has become a national tradition today, was not only to entertain, but also to educate rollers.
Some poetry, pieces of daily news or the adventures of the Count of Montecristo: the Torcedores of the factory decide themselves what they want to hear from their reader, while rolling world-famous Havanas. Thus, installed on the "tribuna", an elevated platform, the reader represents a direct source of cultural contribution for the workers, many of them having left school at a very young age.
As another example of this goodwill of tobacco companies to promote education, we should mention the case of Tabacalera Cubana SA. This Havana company, that owned the famous manufacture La Corona and cigarettes Susini, financed the edition of a universal geographic album for Cuban teachers and students.
Solidly bound, this album was published in June 1936 in Havana as the foreword mentions. Inside, each double page is dedicated to a different country belonging to the five continents of the globe. In this way, the book comprises five sections, one per continent, and ends with a geographical map of all the parts of the world. Within each section, the left page contains everything one needs to know about the country: geographical, social, political and cultural information.
On the right page black and white photographs show landscapes and important monuments of the country. And, of course, there is the country’s national flag, printed in colour.
The result is a magnificently presented universal geographical album including over 780 film photographs. The latter were to be found on the packs of Susini cigarettes manufactured by Tabacalera Cubana SA. This became possible thanks to Luis Susini’s revolutionary invention of chromolithography technique.
To learn more about this original Universal Geográfico Album from 1936, we are delighted to invite you to the Art and Culture area, where you can discover and consult this piece of Cuban history.
(Piece from our private collection)
For more information, contact us on +41 22 552 2799