After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, writers of all backgrounds were challenged by the material constraints that immediately took place. Supplies such paper and ink were difficult to come by, and the lack of materials was compounded by the lack of publishing and binding houses. Though such companies had existed within the private sector, at the time of the Revolution, these businesses were in the process of being nationalized by the new Cuban government. The result was that immediately after the Revolution, no Cuban publishing houses existed that were capable of sustainably carrying out the publishing and binding needs of the Cuban body of writers, though some were available to do “short runs” of several hundred copies. This may help to explain why women writers in Cuba experienced a publishing lull, though creatively and culturally encouraged through the establishment of Casa de Las Américas and Imprenta Nacional in 1959. Despite these challenges, the establishment of free education allowed for a drastically higher literacy rate, so writers had wider and more diverse audiences than ever before. Such developments are thought to contribute to the "boom" in women's writing that occurred in the 1970s, especially among younger women writers.