[[File:ALLEY BETWEEN NORTH SIDE OF STEMMERY (LEFT) AND BONDED WAREHOUSE (RIGHT), LOOKING WEST - Ybor Cigar Factory, 1916 North Fourteenth Street, Tampa, Hillsborough County, FL HABS FLA,29-TAMP,19-23.tif|thumb|Alley between a stemmery (left) and bonded warehouse in Ybor City, Florida]] A '''stemmery''' is a building where tobacco leaves are stripped for the production of tobacco products. The name is an Americanism dating to the mid-late 1850s.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dictionary.com/browse/stemmery|title=the definition of stemmery|website=Dictionary.com}}</ref> Stemmeries often employed African-American laborers.
==Labor issues== Many stemmery workers were African Americans from the antebellum period (when slaves were used) to the post-Civil War era, when African-American workers were employed for the lower-waged and lower-skilled work carried out at stemmeries. The work was typically seasonal following the tobacco harvest.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GeOfMXK0SVIC&q=stemmery|title=FAIR EMPLOYMENT PRACTICE CASES Opinions of Federal and State Courts Under Federal and State Laws and Orders Relating to Employment Discrimination Based on Race, Color, Religion, Sex, Sexual Orientation, National Origin, Age, or Disability|date=15 May 1978|publisher=|via=Google Books}}</ref>
In 1942, African-American workers at Larus and Brother Company tried to negotiate better pay through their union representative, but the company fended off the discrimination claim by saying that, while these workers made less than white workers, they performed a different job function, as they were confined to working in the stemmery rather than in the main factory.<ref name="Lee pp. 36-37">{{cite book|first=Sophia Z. |last=Lee|title=The Workplace Constitution from the New Deal to the New Right|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=80elBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA36|date=November 10, 2014|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-03872-1|pages=36–37}}</ref><ref name="Shockley" /> The segregated work structure and uneven pay scale was allowed to continue.<ref name="Shockley">{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/wetooareamerican0000shoc|url-access=registration|title="We, Too, are Americans": African American Women in Detroit and Richmond, 1940-54|first=Megan Taylor|last=Shockley|year=2004|pages=[https://archive.org/details/wetooareamerican0000shoc/page/80 80], 222|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=9780252028632 |via=Internet Archive}}</ref>
Moranda Smith, a labor organizer in the 1940s, won a substantial settlement for workers, including those at stemmeries in Winston-Salem. Her efforts also resulted in the doubling of the minimum wage.<ref name="Davis1982">{{cite book|author=Marianna W. Davis|title=Contributions of Black Women to America: Civil rights, politics and government, education, medicine, sciences|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2eztAAAAMAAJ|year=1982|publisher=Kenday Press}}</ref>
==Locations== thumb|Floor plan of the Ybor Cigar Factory, showing the stemmery in the lower left According to a 1903 Kentucky Bureau of Labor report there were several stemmeries in Owensboro.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OlsTAAAAYAAJ&q=stemmery|title=Biennial Report of the Labor Inspector of the State of Kentucky|first=Kentucky Office of the Labor|last=Inspector|date=15 May 2018|publisher=Bureau of Agriculture, Labor and Statistics|via=Google Books}}</ref>
Significant stemmeries include:
* National Tobacco Works Branch Stemmery * Stemmery building at American Cigar Company (Norfolk, Virginia) *W. B. Lewis & Sons Tobacco stemmery building in the Darlington Industrial Historic District
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[https://digital.library.vcu.edu/digital/collection/cook/id/192 1905 photograph of workers outside a stemmery], Virginia Commonwealth University photographic collection
* Category:Tobacco in the United States
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