--- title: Vintage Cuba Photos: See the Island Before Revolution description: From turn-of-the-century street scenes to 1950s glamor, these never-before-published images show what Cuba looked like before the revolution canonical: https://time.com/5286347/photos-of-cuba-before-revolution/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-05-23T14:00:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:57:49.172Z article:section: History og:title: Previously Unpublished Photos Capture Life in Cuba Before Revolution og:description: From turn-of-the-century street scenes to 1950s glamor og:url: https://time.com/5286347/photos-of-cuba-before-revolution/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3ef06ffa6ce22517/69893113ab6d776d496b2bc9/193.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Cárdenas, Matanzas, 1940 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Previously Unpublished Photos Capture Life in Cuba Before Revolution twitter:description: From turn-of-the-century street scenes to 1950s glamor twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3ef06ffa6ce22517/69893113ab6d776d496b2bc9/193.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Previously Unpublished Photos Capture Life in Cuba Before Revolution ## Video: Filmmaker Who Documented Cuba for 45 years Reflects on Nation's Rocky Journey [Watch (HLS stream): Filmmaker Who Documented Cuba for 45 years Reflects on Nation's Rocky Journey](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/wYUWYgWo.m3u8) (3:27)  _Published 2017-11-22. When Fidel Castro passed away one year ago, Filmmaker Jon Alpert from New York's DCTV was there, following Castro's ashes around the country. This was Alpert's last trip to Cuba in his new documentary, Cuba and the Cameraman._  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. May 23, 2018 2:00 PM UTC  Swimmers and spectators gather around a beached shark. Cárdenas, Matanzas, 1940 Swimmers and spectators gather around a beached shark. Cárdenas, Matanzas, 1940Victor Aton Estudio Fotográfico, Cardenas / Cuba Then  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. May 23, 2018 2:00 PM UTC The Cuban revolution [did not happen all at once](http://time.com/3666177/fidel-castro-cuba-history/). In the first half of the 20th century, even as Cuba maintained a reputation as a tourist haven and a haunt for Ernest Hemingway, the island’s politics were almost continually [unsettled](http://time.com/vault/issue/1933-05-15/page/1/). After Fidel Castro’s 1953 uprising against the dictator Fulgencio Batista failed, his followers waited for him to try again. By the end of the decade, Castro had done so — this time succeeding. But by early 1959, shortly after he first rose to power, it was clear that his revolution would not be a gentle one. As his government moved toward hardline communism, many fled Cuba. One of those many was a young boy, just 8 years old, named Ramiro A. Fernández. Fernández, who was born in Havana, moved to the U.S. and stayed there. Years later, he would work in photo departments at Time Inc. for more than two decades, during which time he began to build a collection of images from his homeland. His collection of Cuban photos and ephemera — which today tops out at more than 8,000 individual items — includes rarities from Cuban history dating back to the early days of photography. A selection of those images were previously published in the book [_Cuba Then_](http://www.monacellipress.com/book/?isbn=9781580935104)_,_ a revised and expanded edition of which will be released on May 29, as a response to evolutions of Cuba’s place in the world, particularly vis-à-vis the United States, since the first edition came out. (In 1960, the U.S. [imposed an embargo](http://time.com/4076438/us-cuba-embargo-1960/) that kept most U.S. goods out of Cuba, and two years later that policy expanded. During that period, the U.S. [closed its embassy](http://time.com/3637822/cuba-history/) in Havana; diplomatic relations [resumed](http://time.com/3997866/havana-video/) in 2015 but [tensions](http://time.com/4962780/us-travel-warning-cuba-sonic-attacks/) remain.) The book includes more than 300 images, of which about a third — including all of the images seen above — are new to this edition and have never been published before. An [exhibition](https://news.mdc.edu/press%5Frelease/mdcs-cuban-legacy-gallery-at-the-freedom-tower-presents-cuban-streams-1885-1965-an-installation-by-cesar-trasobares/) at Miami Dade College, which includes some of the images, will also run through May 19 of next year. As poet Richard Blanco notes in the book’s foreword, growing up in the Cuban community in Florida in the 1960s was in some ways a perfect storm for the development of a keen sense of nostalgia for pre-revolution Cuba, as Cuban exiles held an older version of the island in their hearts. For Fernández, that nostalgia has expressed itself in images — photographs of the revolution, but also of the everyday life and Caribbean beauty, two sides of the coin of Cuban memory. From turn-of-the-century street scenes to 1950s glamor, these images offer a window into that enchanting but complicated world.  Oxen-pulled delivery cart stationed on Avenue Carlos III. Ayestarán, Havana, 1900. George W. Andreu / Cuba Then  A cargo-hauling mule with pompom-like saddle adornments, framed by a Colonial doorway. Havana, 1900  Cuban Soldiers and Sailors conveying the caskets of the Maine dead to the dock in Havana, Cuba, March 16, 1912. Cuba Then  View up a bustling Obispo Street filled with fotingos, the colloquial word for the cars of this era. Havana, 1928 Cuba Then  The 6th-grade class at the Jesuit-run Dolores School, with Fidel Castro Ruz standing to the left in the bottom (marked by a faint arrow). This snapshot belonged to fellow classmate Ángel M. Crespo. Santiago de Cuba, December 1, 1938 Family of Angel M. Crespo; Needleman’s English Academy / Cuba Then  Swimmers and spectators gather around a beached shark. Cárdenas, Matanzas, 1940 Victor Aton Estudio Fotográfico, Cardenas / Cuba Then  Promotional photo for early in-car telephone not far from the Hotel Nacional. El Vedado, Havana, 1950 Cadena Gráfica Foto / Cuba Then  The son of a lighthouse keeper gazes out to the Caribbean Sea at the Castillo de San Pedro de la Roca (Castillo del Morro). Santiago de Cuba, 1952. Cuba Then  Christmas card featuring a typographic holiday greeting on the eastern facade of the United States Embassy, 1957 Embassy of the United States of America / Cuba Then  View of the city from the cocktail lounge atop the Havana Hilton. The hotel was advertised as Latin America’s tallest and largest upon its opening. Havana, 1958. Cuba Then  Fidel A. Castro on a municipal bus (Route 28, Buenavista) drinking a Coca-Cola surrounded by an excited, curious crowd. 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