i am reading, in a history of reading, by alberto manguel, about how cuban cigar factories in 1866 employed a lector, or official reader, whose job it was to read aloud to the workers as they rolled cigars from la aurora, a newspaper carrying the works of "major cuban writers of the day, translations of european authors such as schiller and chateaubriand, reviews of books and plays, and exposes of the tyranny of factory owners and the workers' suffering" they were immensely popular, and by 1870s were prohibited by the political governor of cuba, who saw the readings as subversive, but clandestine readings continued for a few more years. cuban refugees to the us in the 1870s revived the institution of the lector in the cigar factories of key west. the material read ranged from the news and histories to modern and classical poetry and novels.