President Barack Obama’s official visit to Cuba this week is the first such trip in nearly 90 years. The last–and only–time a sitting U.S. President visited Cuba was Calvin Coolidge in 1928:
U.S. President Calvin Coolidge, second from left, and his wife, first lady Grace Coolidge, third from left, are shown with the President of Cuba General Gerardo Machado y Morales, right, and his wife, Elvira Machado, left, on the estate of President Machado in Havana, Cuba, Jan. 19, 1928.AP Photo
The Cuba Obama’s visiting has a reputation as a place frozen in time, but that’s not really true. Just look at these images from Cuba in the 1920s.
Cuban girls banding the Havana cigar, after which they are boxed. Havana, Cuba, 1920.Bettman—CorbisPanorama showing train loaded with sugar leaving for N.Y., sugar mill, administration buildings and sugar cane plantation. Guantanamo, Cuba, 1920.Bettman—CorbisA cigar-factory employee with a large Havana Cigar. 1920.Bettman—CorbisMiss Lillian Molton, daughter of Cuba's tobacco king and judged the most beautiful girl in Havana, 1922. Bettman—CorbisPortrait of a typical Cuban peasant family. Cuba, 1921.Bettman—CorbisThe U.S. military camping at Deer Point in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. 1923.Bettman—CorbisA peddler's cart in Havana, Cuba, 1925.Bettman—CorbisHordes of people and motor cars crowd the waterfront as the Cunard liner Mauretania pulls into Havana, Cuba. 1925.General Photographic Agency—Getty ImagesHavana, Cuba, 1926. Print Collector—Getty ImagesU.S. Fleet in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 1927. Bettmann—CorbisA Spanish Baroque-style church with the columns of an arcade in the foreground in Havana, Cuba. 1928.Bettman—CorbisA view of Central Park in Havana, Cuba. 1928.Bettman—CorbisView of the veranda of the clubhouse at Oriental Park, Havana, during the December Holiday season. 1929. Bettman—CorbisThe bathing beach in Havana, Cuba, 1929. Underwood Archives—Getty ImagesThe Presidential Palace in Havana, Cuba, 1929.AP Photo
