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Maria Teresa Batista y Falla

1928–1988

Born
1928, Vedado
Country of birth
Cuba
Died
1988
facts
4
sources
1
images and files
0

Facts and their sources

Tap a fact to see where it comes from.

  • Birth1928, VedadoProbable1 source
  • Death1988Probable1 source

A life in time

  1. Born · Vedado

    Birth, Vedado

  2. Child born: Maria Teresa, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg

    Birth, Marianao

  3. Died

    Death

What was it like?

The world around Vedado, 1928: who ruled, who else was alive, how people lived. This is general history, not a record about the family, and every item shows where it comes from.

Maria was born the same year as Che Guevara, Andy Warhol, and Stanley Kubrick.

Born the same year

  • Che Guevara

    Argentine Marxist revolutionary (1928–1967)

  • Andy Warhol

    American artist, film director, and producer (1928–1987)

  • Stanley Kubrick

    American filmmaker and photographer (1928–1999)

  • Maya Angelou

    American poet, author, and civil rights activist (1928–2014)

  • Elie Wiesel

    Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor (1928-2016)

  • Noam Chomsky

    American linguist and activist (born 1928)

Fashion
Around 1930–1939

Marlene Dietrich inspired Cuban women's fashion.

During the 1930s, the actress Marlene Dietrich influenced Cuban women to begin wearing trousers for country outings and trips to the beach.

Around 1900–1924

Masculine style in the early Republic

During the early Republic, men frequently wore white drill suits paired with straw hats, while the guayabera shirt persisted as a key element of masculine dress.

Music

Everyday Objects Used as Carnival Instruments

In Havana and Santiago de Cuba, carnival comparsas (festive retinues) incorporated everyday metal objects like frying pans, iron railings, and automobile tire rims as musical instruments to enhance their rhythms. These ensembles also famously used the corneta china, a shrill, piercing Chinese wind instrument that could be heard over great distances.

Instruments of Popular Cuban Music

In the 1940s, popular musicians began using the tres, a six-stringed instrument resembling a guitar, to define the sound of the son genre. Meanwhile, home percussion often featured improvised instruments like drawers, sideboards, or boxes known as cajones.

Getting around

Coches provided cheap urban transport in Havana

In Havana, visitors frequently used horse-drawn public carriages known as coches to travel between points in the city for a fare of 20 cents for one or two passengers.

International ferry connected Havana and Florida

A train ferry operated between Havana and Key West, United States, completing the international crossing in approximately six hours.

Daily life

Lack of sanitation and water

Nearly two-thirds of the population lacked running water, and 43 percent of homes did not have indoor toilets, a figure that reached 97 percent in rural regions.

Limited access to electricity

In 1953, only 12 percent of urban homes had electricity, while in rural areas, this figure was as low as 12 percent, leaving 88 percent of rural households to rely on candles and lanterns.

Food

Affordable complete meals at Chinese restaurants

Families could purchase a "completa" meal from Chinese restaurants for 15 centavos, which typically included rice, a stew, meat, and fried plantains.

Frequent consumption of coffee

Cubans frequently drank strong, sweet coffee throughout the day, sometimes adding salt to café con leche when lacking energy.

Prices and wages

Daily wages for a sugar mill worker

During the 1920s and 1930s, a sugar mill cart driver could earn approximately $1.25 per day.

Working for mere subsistence wages

During the economic hardship between 1928 and 1934, many workers labored for only 30 to 40 centavos a day, or sometimes worked exclusively in exchange for food.

Work

Long working hours in the fields

Cane cutters often worked from sunup to sundown, with some starting as early as 3 AM during harvest and working until midnight to maximize earnings.

Payment with company store tickets

Workers were frequently paid with company store tickets instead of cash, which forced them to purchase food and supplies at inflated prices from company-owned shops.

News and letters

Early air and rocket mail experiments

By 1930, regular air mail services were established in Cuba, and in 1939, a postal rocket experiment was conducted to transport correspondence rapidly to faraway places.

Long postal delays for Baracoa mail

In the 1940s, mail delivery to Baracoa via steamship could take over 20 days because the ships had to make multiple stops at villages along the north and south coasts.

During their lifetime

  1. 1929

    Economic collapse during the 1930s Depression

    Following the 1929 stock market crash, the value of Cuba's sugar production collapsed from nearly $200 million in 1929 to just over $40 million in 1932.

  2. 1933

    The 1933 Fifty-Percent Law passed

    In 1933, the government passed the Fifty-Percent Law, requiring that at least 50 percent of employees in any industry be native-born Cuban citizens.

  3. 1940

    The 1940 Constitution reforms enacted

    The 1940 Constitution granted women the vote for the first time and established an 8-hour workday and one month's paid holiday for workers.

  4. 1952

    Batista stages 1952 military coup

    In 1952, Fulgencio Batista staged a military coup, suspended the 1940 Constitution, and revoked political liberties, including the right to strike.

  5. 1980

    The 1980 Mariel boatlift exodus

    In 1980, the Cuban government opened the port of Mariel, allowing approximately 125,000 Cubans to depart for the United States over five months.

Family

Spouses

Children

Ancestors and children

Open the full tree

Four generations back to the right, the children to the left. The number beside a child counts the generations of descendants known after them.