"I've been workin' since I was 15 at Mr. Salomon's cigar factory--so have my two brothers. I roll about 150 cigars a day for 68 cents. My three sisters work too, even my youngest sister Rosa who's just 15. They are all seamstresses. All of us help to support the family."
-William Binder, white male, age 17
Photo captions: La Zoos cigar label, circa 1890s. Northern manufacturers adopted Spanish-sounding names to make fraudulent links between domestic cigars and the more sought after ones (KVM collection); Unidentified young man from 1890s (unknown collection); boys rolling cigars in Floriday, circa 1890 (Library of Congress collection).
To find more historic photographs and artifacts related to cigar making in Kalamazoo, visit KVM's searchable collections database.