This is one of a series of photographs of workers in the 1970s at JR Freeman & Son, Tobacco Manufacturers of Penarth Rd in Grangetown, Cardiff.
JR Freeman & Son was one of Grangetown's longest surviving businesses, opening a branch in Cardiff at the end of 19th century and closing down in November 2009. More than a century of cigar making in Cardiff started in Bridge Rd, then North Clive St 1919 and finally moved to the new modern factory in Penarth Rd in 1961. The company was a major employer of women in Cardiff.
Taken over by Gallahers in 1947, it was manufacturing 70 million cigars a year.
This photograph shows women working in the company factory in 1973-74 processing the dried tobacco leaves by hand, stretching, trimming and stacking them ready to be smoothed and rolled to make cigars. The tobaco leaves waiting to be processed are piled on trolleys behind the supervisor.