ABSTRACT Title of Document: DISTINCTION, CULTURE, AND POLITICS IN MEXICO CITY?S MIDDLE CLASS, 1890-1940. Susanne Karin Eineigel, Ph.D., 2011 Directed By: Professor Mary Kay Vaughan, Department of History This dissertation looks at Mexico City?s middle class from 1890 to 1940. During the latter part of the Porfirio D?az administration (1876-1910), the middle class grew as the city became a commercial and administrative center. Sociologists both criticized and praised the middle class and its role in the country?s future. Members of the middle class distinguished themselves from the Porfirian elite and lower classes through bodily behaviors learned from urban conduct manuals and short stories. The Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) was a devastating blow to the middle class, which rallied around issues of housing, employment, and transportation. In the neighborhood of Santa Mar?a la Ribera, residents petitioned for urban services and infrastructure improvements. Continuing a long history of civic engagement, the city?s middle class publicly organized in response to the anti-clerical policies of the Plutarco Calles administration (1924-1928). Economic and political difficulties hindered the efforts of post-revolutionary municipal and federal leaders to win state loyalty from Mexico City?s public employees. At the same time, new mass media, fashions, and popular culture of the 1920s and 1930s challenged existing class distinctions and gender norms. Educational opportunities opened up wider prospects for the middle class, or those seeking middle-class status. Technical schools and the National Polytechnic School offered one set of possibilities. The National Preparatory School and the National University offered another. The L?zaro C?rdenas administration (1936-1940) aimed to unite the middle class and the working class. As the state bureaucracy grew in the 1930s, C?rdenas brought public employees into a close relationship with the National Revolutionary Party (PNR), which later became the Party of the Mexican Revolution (PRM). By the end of the C?rdenas era, many sectors of the middle class felt politically marginalized. In contrast, middle-class public employees became beneficiaries of the country?s new corporate state. DISTINCTION, CULTURE, AND POLITICS IN MEXICO CITY?S MIDDLE CLASS, 1890-1940. By Susanne Karin Eineigel Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2011 Advisory Committee: Professor Mary Kay Vaughan, Chair Professor Barbara Weinstein Professor Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz Associate Professor Daryle Williams Associate Professor Karin Rosemblatt ? Copyright by Susanne Karin Eineigel 2011 ii Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank Mary Kay Vaughan whose unwavering support and sure guidance kept me afloat. She has been a remarkable advisor to whom I feel much gratitude. For their generous financial support, I thank the University of Maryland History Department, the University of Maryland Graduate School, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. For their patience and help while pursing my research, I am indebted to the staff of various archives I consulted in Mexico City. Through the research and writing of this dissertation, I received the support of family, friends, and colleagues. I especially thank my mother Agneta and father Peter for their encouragement during the long road of my education. Dr. Van der Heide made the possibility of finishing this dissertation a reality. While I wrote these words, he guided me in writing new chapters of my life. Finally, my husband David Carletta has been a constant source of strength, always believing in me and in this dissertation. I will always be grateful. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................ii Table of Contents .....................................................................................................iii Introduction: The Making of Mexico City?s Middle Class 1 Chapter 1: Fashioning a Promising Social Category: Mexico City?s Porfirian Middle Class ....................................................................................................................... 14 Introduction......................................................................................................... 14 Porfirian Intellectuals Imagine Mexico's Middle Class......................................... 15 The Changing Urban Economy and Decline of the Artisan Class......................... 19 Middle-Class Formation: Education and the Importance of Manners ................... 24 Private Lives Under Public Scrutiny .................................................................... 27 Consumerism, Class Respectability, and Threats to Middle-Class Gender ........... 34 Mexico City Expansion???????????????????????38 Conclusion???????????????????????????....42 Chapter 2: Revolutionary Promises for a Suffering Middle Class, 1913-1928??.. 44 Introduction........................................................................................................ 44 The Revolution Comes to Mexico City................................................................ 45 Petitioning for Assistance From a Sympathetic Revolutionary Government......... 50 Middle-Class Protests and Neighborhood Action in the 1920s ............................. 54 Political Organizing Among the Middle Classes in the 1920s .............................. 61 Cristero Rebellion in Mexico City ...................................................................... 67 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 74 Chapter 3: The Neighborhood of Santa Mar?a la Ribera.......................................... 76 Introduction......................................................................................................... 77 The Neighborhood of Santa Mar?a la Ribera, 1860-1915 ..................................... 78 Community Organizing in Porfirian Santa Mar?a la Ribera, 1890-1910 ............... 86 After the Destruction: Appealing to the Revolutionary State???????? 94 Defending Christ in the Streets of Santa Mar?a la Ribera, 1920s .......................... 99 Religious Education Goes Underground ............................................................ 104 Conclusion??????????????????????????..... 107 Chapter 4: Spectacle and Middle-Class Youth in the Capital City, 1920-1940 ...... 109 Introduction....................................................................................................... 109 Cheap Pleasures for the Chica Moderna ............................................................ 110 Muscular Manliness Counters Modernity's Threat to Mexican Men ................... 115 Desire, Affect, and the Experience of Modernity ............................................... 118 Anxious Critics of Modernity's Corrupting Influences ....................................... 124 Postrevolutionary Catholic Defense of Mexican Decency .................................. 127 Middle-Class Search for Mexicanidad ............................................................... 132 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 136 Chapter 5: Men and Women in Vocational, Technical and Preparatory Education: From the Porfiriato to 1930 ................................................................................... 137 Introduction....................................................................................................... 138 iv Educating Women of the Middle Class: Training in Domestic Industries........... 139 Industrial and Technical Schools for Men.......................................................... 146 The Education of the Middle-Class Employee: Men and Women....................... 150 Revolution in the Classroom: The National Preparatory School ......................... 156 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 165 Chapter 6: Education and Middle-Class Discontent in the 1930s .......................... 166 Introduction....................................................................................................... 167 Socialist Education and Battles Over Classroom Curriculum ............................. 168 L?zaro Cardenas and the Middle Class: The Battle Over Vocational, Technical, and Professional Training ........................................................................................ 176 Still More Middle-Class Discontent................................................................... 182 C?rdenas Responds to the Middle Class............................................................. 190 Chapter 7: Public Employees: Beleaguered, Gender-Challenged and Corporativized (1920-1940) .......................................................................................................... 194 Introduction....................................................................................................... 194 The Public Employee in the Early 1920s ........................................................... 195 Candido Cordero: Beleaguered Public Employee............................................... 200 The Corporativization of the Public Employee (1925-1940) .............................. 208 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 222 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 222 Bibliography ......................................................................................................... 235 1 Introduction: The Making of Mexico City?s Middle Class Since sociological thought emerged in the late nineteenth century, thinkers, writers, observers and statesmen have posited a particular role for the social category of the middle class in the historical development of nations. Beginning with Max Weber, the middle class was the anchor of modern development. Situated between the rich and the poor, the middle class was essential to processes of capital accumulation such as savings and thrift, to production through a strong work ethic and self- discipline, and to prudent consumption. Its members led the way for market fluidity and flexibility through individualization and education and training, and for democracy by valuing order and accountability. In 1958, following the lead of much modernization literature, historian John J. Johnson analyzed Latin America?s early twentieth-century ?middle sectors? as harbingers of the region?s democracy and modernization.1 Recently, several excellent monographs have examined the historical construction of the Latin American middle class. Soledad Loaeza identifies the Mexican middle class as a strongly conservative and deeply Roman Catholic sector that rejected the direction of post-revolutionary governments. In Peru, David Parker shows how white-collar work became associated with a Peruvian middle class. Patrick Barr-Melej lays out the important role played by the middle class in twentieth-century Chilean cultural nationalism. Maureen O?Dougherty, Brian Owensby, and Cristina Peixoto Mehrtens demonstrate how Brazil?s middle class 1 John J. Johnson, Political Change in Latin America: The Emergence of the Middle Sectors (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1958). 2 defined itself in relation to consumption, politics, and residential and recreational space.2 All these studies present a multi-faceted view of Latin American?s middle classes that challenge the roles and behaviors sociologists have theoretically attributed to them. These middle classes were at times anti-modernizers, involved in patron-client relationships, and supportive of authoritarian rule. My dissertation on Mexico City?s middle class from 1890 to 1940 builds on and challenges these studies. I demonstrate how as in Peru occupational stratification expanded the white-collar professions, particularly public employment, by the turn- of-the-century. But, in Mexico following the Revolution of 1910, the expansion of the concept of the ?working class? threatened the traditional working and middle class distinction. As in Chile, the middle class had since the late nineteenth century defined itself against a Europhile elite through a strong sense of nationalism. Yet, after the Revolution, the inclusion of the Indian, campesinos, and working class into the national pantheon complicated the Mexican middle-class identity. I also build on the Brazilian case studies in demonstrating how cultural and material consumption aided social stratification. At the same time, the beginnings of a mass consumer market and state-supported popular culture threatened to blur middle-class boundaries. The dissertation also presents a diverse middle class in Mexico. Soledad Loaeza identifies the middle class only in relation to dissident Roman Catholics. 2 Patrick Barr-Melej, Reforming Chile: Cultural Politics, Nationalism and the Rise of the Middle Class (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2001); Maureen O?Dougherty, Consumption Intensified. The Politics of the Middle-Class Lives in Brazil, 1900-1950 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002); Soledad Loaeza, Clases medias y pol?tica en M?xico (M?xico, DF: El Colegio de M?xico, 1999); Cristina Peixoto Mehrtens, ?Urban Space and Politics: Constructing Social Identity and the Middle Class in S?o Paulo, Brazil, 1930s-1940s,? (PhD Diss., University of Miami, 2000); Brian Owensby, Intimate Ironies: Modernity and the Making of the Middle-Class Lives in Brazil (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999); David Parker, The Idea of the Middle Class: White-Collar Workers and Peruvian Society, 1900-1950 (University Park, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998). 3 While my study does not dismiss them, I demonstrate that the middle class was far more varied and substantial. The middle class also had a different relationship to politics than proposed by Loaeza. Rather than an autonomous class who wanted limited state intervention, the revolutionary period and the 1920s show a desire by its members to seek relief and assistance from the state. In fact, portions of the middle class owed their existence to state formation and largesse through government employment and public educational opportunities and would have accepted more support had the government been willing and able to provide it. In the recent past, these empirical studies have been enriched and potentially complicated by new work on gender and on culture, particularly in the areas of entertainment, fashion, sports, and nationalism. My study builds on studies of the Porfiriato that have looked at class identity and self-presentation in relation to print literature, performance, manners, and bodily control.3 My work also adds to new studies on 1920s and 1930s Mexico that analyze how new music, dance, and dress challenged existing gender norms and class identities.4 These recent works approach the concepts of identity and meaning as inherently unstable, never static, and in 3 Victor Mac?as-Gonz?lez, ?Hombres de mundo: la masculinidad, el consumo, y los manuals de urbanidad y buenas maneras? in Orden social e identidad de g?nero M?xico, siglos XIX y XX, eds. Mar?a Teresa Fern?ndez Aceves, Carmen Ramos Escand?n, and Susie Porter (M?xico, DF: CIESAS, 2006), 267-297; Susanne Eineigel, ?Visualizing the Self: Modernity, Identity, and the Gente Decente in Porfirian Mexico,? (MA thesis, University of British Columbia, 2003); Valentina Torres Septi?n, ?Manuales de conducta, urbanidad y buenos modales durante el Porfiriato. Notas sobre el comportamiento femenino,? in Modernidad, tradici?n y alteridad: La ciudad de M?xico en el cambio del siglo, eds. Claudia Agostini y Elisa Speckman (M?xico, DF: UNAM, 2001). 4 Ageeth Sluis, ?City of Spectacles: Gender Performance, Revolutionary Reform, and the Creation of Public Space in Mexico City, 1915-1939,? (PhD Diss., University of Arizona, 2006); Jocelyn Olcott, Mary Kay Vaughan, and Gabriela Cano, eds., Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006); Elsa Mu?iz, Cuerpo, representaci?n y poder. M?xico en los albores de la reconstrucci?n nacional, 1920-1934 (M?xico, DF: UAM Azcapotzalco, 2002). 4 process of becoming.5 Representational practices, mainly through visual culture, attempted to stabilize the open meanings of class, gender, and nation.6 This dissertation approaches social identities as multifaceted and constructed through complex interrelationships between different spheres of experience, including workplaces and neighborhoods, political and social lives, and popular and dominant cultures. I also emphasize the changing nature of Mexico City?s middle class as both a practice and a concept from the 1890s to the two decades following the Revolution (1920-1940.) Change came from members themselves as well as outside influences like the consumer market, the Roman Catholic Church, and the state. Consequently, middle-class boundaries were historically shifting and disputed ones that were continually produced and transformed.7 Thus, this study contributes to an international shift in approach to class as a category of analysis that seeks to understand how members constructed individual and group identities through language, material life, daily practices, social interaction, and personal experience. This literature has explored the middle class through material culture and consumption,8 and comportment, the body, and representation.9 5 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 2000); John Mraz, Looking for Mexico: Modern Visual Culture and National Identity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009), 2. 6 Mary Kay Vaughan and Stephen E. Lewis, eds., The Eagle and the Virgin: Nation and Cultural Revolution in Mexico, 1920-1940 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006); John Mraz, Looking for Mexico: Modern Visual Culture and National Identity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009). 7 L?ic J.D Wacquant, ?Making Class: The Middle Class(es) in Social Theory and Social Structure,? in Bringing Class Back In: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives, eds. Scott G. McNall, Rhonda F. Levine, and Rick Fantasia (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991). 8 Inga Bryden and Janet Floyd, Domestic Space: Reading the Nineteenth Century Interior (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1999); Alan Kidd and David Nicholls, eds., Gender, Civic Culture and Consumerism: Middle-Class Identity in Britain, 1800-1940 (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1991); Jesus Cruz, ?Building Liberal Identities in 19th Century Madrid: The Role of Middle Class Material Culture.? The Americas 60:3 (January 2004): 391-410; John Henry IV Hepp, 5 My dissertation brings new research to current work that seeks to understand the emergence of a middle class as a transnational but locally differentiated phenomenon. At times the middle class appears strikingly similar around the globe. Comparative studies have shown shared values and experiences in several countries.10 Yet national contexts and local discourses shaped a native experience and sensibility. Drawing inspiration from new theoretical models for understanding modernity in a global context, recent work seeks to make visible other, or alternative, narratives for the middle class.11 At the same time, some scholars assert the centrality of these traditionally peripheral case studies to understanding the middle class. They reject judging these experiences against a supposedly original or authentic one found in Western Europe and the United States. For example, Harry Harootunian correctly points out that modifiers such as ?alternative? or ?divergent? imply a supposed original modernity based in Europe and the United States.12 Ricardo L?pez makes a similar argument in The Middle-Class City: Transforming Space and Time in Philadelphia, 1876-1926 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003). 9 Andrea Volpe, ?Cartes de Visite Portrait Photographs and the Culture of Class Formation,? in The Middling Sorts: Exploration in the History of the American Middle Class, eds. Burton J Bledstein and Robert D. Johnston (Routledge: New York, 2001). 10 Peter Gay, The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud. Vols. 1-4. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984); Linda Young, Middle-Class Culture in the Nineteenth Century: America, Australia and Britain (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). 11 Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000); Rita Felski, The Gender of Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995); Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar, ed. Alternative Modernities (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001); Bruce M. Knauft, ed. Critically Modern: Alternatives, Alterities, Anthropologies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002). 12 Harry Harootunian, History?s Disquiet: Modernity, Cultural Practice, and the Question of Everyday Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 163. 6 regards to the history of the global middle class.13 In exploring how global ideas and goods were received in the specific context of Mexico City, my study contributes to research on the local experience of the transnational. I build on recent scholarship on Latin America that, while not expressly concerned with the middle class, traces global phenomenon and national contexts that informed a modern way of behavior, thought, and sentiment. Scholars reveal how transnational movements impacted middle-class formation and culture, such as the influence of new professions and social science models, feminism and child congresses, mass media, and educational reforms and familial law that yielded a new attitude toward the family, childhood, and adolescence.14 In my study, Mexican sociologists, statesmen and social engineers used prescriptions and models based on an imagined European middle class. But Mexico City?s middle class understood and experienced transnational ideas based on their own conceptions of class, gender, and race in a time of revolution and cultural nationalism. 13 A. Ricardo L?pez with Barbara Weinstein, ?We Shall Be All: Toward a Transnational History of the Middle Class,? in The Making of the Middle Class: Toward a Transnational History, eds. A. Ricardo L?pez with Barbara Weinstein (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, forthcoming). 14 On new professions and social science models, see James Woodard, ?Marketing Modernity: The J. Walter Thompson Co. and North American Advertising in Brazil 1929-1939,? Hispanic American Historical Review 82:2 (May 2002): 257-290; Julio Moreno, Yankee Don?t Go Home!: Mexican Nationalism, American Business Culture, and the Shaping of Modern Mexico, 1920-1950 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003); Michael A. Ervin, ?The 1930 Agrarian Census in Mexico: Agronomists, Middle Politics, and the Negotiation of Data Collection,? Hispanic American Historical Review 87/3 (2007): 537-570. On feminism and child congresses, see Donna J. Guy, ?The Politics of Pan-American Cooperation: Maternalist Feminism and the Child Rights Movement, 1913? 1960,?American Historical Review 104:5 (December 1999); Asunci?n Lavrin, Women, Feminism, and Social Change in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, 1890-1940 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995). On mass media, see Anne Rubenstein, Bad Language, Naked Ladies, and Other Threats to the Nation: A Political History of Comic Books in Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998); Anne Rubenstein, ?Raised Voices at the Cine Montecarlo: Sex Education, Mass Media, and Oppositional Politics in Mexico,? Journal of Family History 23/3 (July 1998): 312-323. On new attitudes toward family and children, see Ann S. Blum, Domestic Economies: Family, Work, and Welfare in Mexico City, 1884-1943 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009). 7 In Chapter One, I document the hopes commentators placed in the sector of professionals, office workers, merchants, and artisans that expanded rapidly in Mexico City under conditions of economic growth fostered by the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz (1876-1910). I stress as well their disdain at what they perceived to be the failure of designated and self-identified members of this class to live up to ideal behaviors: they were profligate, short-sighted, and lacking in entrepreneurial spirit. For the middle class itself, insecurity around social distinction placed an inordinate amount of attention on visual codes of the body. If commentators anticipated that middle-class failures in behavior could be corrected through continued economic growth or state policy, both the economy and the state proved to be weak allies in the short run. In Mexico City the Revolution of 1910 challenged the very existence of the middle class as competing armies invaded and laid waste to the capital. As I demonstrate in Chapter Two, while revolutionary leadership and the cadres that staffed post-revolutionary governments came from and thus augmented professional outlets for the middle class, from the 1910s well into the 1920s, fledgling governments faced repeated mobilizations by middle-class groups, including public employees, neighborhood residents, renters or distraught consumers. They demanded services and relief for survival and improvement like employment, food, housing, transportation, and timely payment of wages. If self-reliance and autonomy are seen as classical middle-class values, the desperation of Mexico City residents left little room for shame: they expected the government?municipal and federal?to come to their aid. 8 In Chapter Three, I examine life in the Colonia Santa Mar?a La Ribera during, before, and after the revolution. Built in the late nineteenth century as a model neighborhood for clerks and professionals, small businessmen and artisans, military and religious personnel, Santa Maria nurtured a lively civil society organized around mutual aid societies, civic and religious associations dedicated to self- and community improvement, and a patriarchal private sphere of home, family, and sentimentality. Severely challenged by the revolution, residents sought from the municipal government relief that would allow them to survive and help them to restore services and facilities. For the most part deeply religious and associated with priests and religious orders, many residents suffered a deep blow when the post- revolutionary state, under the leadership of Plutarco El?as Calles (1924-1928), declared war on the Catholic Church which he and other revolutionaries saw as a threat to the autonomy of a secular state and to the progress of modern society. Santa Mar?a became a center of the organized Catholic movement against the government in defense of religion and freedom of expression. If the upheaval of revolution and the post-revolutionary state?s challenge to religion threatened members of the middle class as it had been constituted in the Porfiriato, other processes challenged them as well in spaces of leisure, education, and work. In Chapter Four, I look at the world of entertainment and consumption as it blurred class boundaries and challenged traditional gender roles. New movie houses, live theaters, dance halls, and fashions came to be shared by different social classes. In them ?decent? women acquired a new presence and place. The middle class had to struggle with accepting and limiting women?s public presence, finding a way to 9 distinguish between the ?modern girl? and the prostitute, acknowledging a new heterosexual space for youth, and maintaining distinctiveness from those they considered their social inferiors. A proliferation of cultural nationalist art and entertainment offered new possibilities for women to become collectors of folk art, take part in risqu? behavior, and join the art world. Men dressed up on weekends as charros to cure the attack on virility posed by precarious, boring office work and newly empowered wives and daughters. Others toted pistols as they painted government walls with revolutionary murals, or formed exquisite literary circles permeated with homoerotic refinement. On the other hand, many?men and women alike?clung to the image of the Virgin de Guadalupe to defend not only religion but also conservative social values. Wildly differing ways of life in the post-revolutionary decades divided the middle class according to beliefs, values, and politics. New or expanded spaces of formal education likewise challenged old class and gender distinctions. They opened opportunities, redefined channels for advancement, and altered the gender and occupational nature of the labor force. In Chapter Five, I look at how the post-revolutionary government democratized public education through vocational schools serving men and women, the middle and working classes, and the poor. Women?s training in domestic arts and industries and clerical skills had contradictory implications for middle-class status: on the one hand, it created a model of modern scientific motherhood as a marker of class distinction while on the other hand, it sent many women into the male domain of office work. The government tried to encourage technical, industrial and skilled trades training for middle-class men in order to advance modern production. While these opportunities 10 may have attracted the sons of artisan entrepreneurs who thought of themselves as middle class, the identification of middle class with a disdain for manual labor seems to have hardened in the 1920s. The hardening was associated with the on-going proletarianization of artisan crafts and the rise of a militant working-class movement for which some artisans and skilled tradesmen provided leadership. As a result, middle-class men or those seeking middle-class status filled schools offering training in office and commercial work. Education also contributed to stratification within the middle class. While many entered vocational schools, a small, but expanding number, including women, entered the National Preparatory School (Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, or ENP) to prepare for university-level professional training. The ENP became a place not only for new practices of heterosexual sociability but for discussing and analyzing new ideas of the self, society and politics. The ENP was not simply a social sorter and incubator of a new elite. By the end of the 1920s, its professors, students, and graduates articulated a major political split in middle-class thought. Many joined the presidential campaign waged in 1929 by ex-Minister of Education Jos? Vasconcelos. The Vasconcelos campaign fought against the anti-religious policies, the corruption and praetorianism of the post-revolutionary state and favored electoral political democracy and classically liberal freedoms. The campaign drew strong middle-class support from all over Mexico. Still other prominent professors and graduates of the ENP provided leadership and expertise to the state. For them, the government?s abuse of political democracy was less important than its promise to further social democracy and economic growth. 11 In Chapter Six, I show how educational policy in the 1930s aggravated divisions within an expanding middle class. When Narcisco Bassols, an instructor at the ENP and Minister of Education from 1931 to 1934, reinvigorated anti-religious education and introduced sex education, sectors of the middle class organized vociferously. Their protests and boycotts resulted in the cancellation of sexual education and forced Bassols to resign. A constitutional reform and the Six Year Plan of the National Revolutionary Party (Partido Nacional Revolucionario, or PNR) that brought L?zaro C?rdenas to the presidency in 1934 introduced socialist education, which was anti-religious in content, and committed to social redistribution through labor and agrarian reform. Public protests throughout the country forced C?rdenas to back down on the anti-religiosity of socialist education. But he upheld a new rhetoric of class that defined the middle and working classes as harmonious ?productive classes.? He sought to reorient and expand professional and technical training for national development and inter-class solidarity. A new National Polytechnic Institute (Instituto Polit?cnico Nacional, or INP) introduced or expanded existing technical careers and assumed responsibility for public vocational training centers. Created as a rival to the National University, the IPN was part of a struggle within an expanding middle class and between government and university authorities. Leadership at the National University resisted state efforts to ?socialize? its teaching in favor of the principle of freedom of thought and university autonomy. In the 1930s, sectors of the middle class joined quasi-fascist organizations like the Confederation of the Middle Class (Confederaci?n de la Clase Media, or CCM) to express their fear and anger over the radicalization and authoritarianism of 12 government policy, their sense of having been left out of social protections and rights, and their commitment to conservative social values and hierarchy. Much of their anger and concern focused on the condition of public employees, who constituted one of the largest sectors of the middle class. Chapter Seven looks at changes faced by public employees between 1917 and 1940 in conditions of work, labor organization, and gender relations within a vastly expanded government bureaucracy at the federal and municipal levels. Although post-revolutionary governments between 1917 and 1926 wanted to introduce values of savings and thrift to its captive audience of employees, they could barely pay their salaries or keep them in their jobs. Employee protests were common. Not until 1926, under the government of Plutarco El?as Calles, was the federal government able to introduce a civil service law that guaranteed pensions. This law, subsequent legislation, and informal procedures acted not only as a form of forced savings and greater job security but also as a form of discipline not historically or sociologically associated with the middle class. In the midst of intense religious, social and political conflict, the state required the loyalty of public employees to its policies and to its newly formed political party, the PNR. While partially honoring classical middle- class values of hard work and merit, the government reinvigorated old practices of clientelism, nepotism, and personalism and introduced new ones of surveillance and mistrust. These factors, combined with the new and controversial presence of women office workers and the humdrum routine increasingly identified with bureaucratic labor, created a problematic work environment particularly for the older male office 13 worker. However, by the end of the C?rdenas period, public employees configured the heart of an expanded middle class and the institutionalized revolution. By 1938, the C?rdenas government faced strong middle-class opposition. In the run-up to the 1940 election sectors of the middle class joined the National Action Party (Partido Acci?n Nacional, or PAN), founded by conservative Roman Catholics under the leadership of Manuel G?mez Mor?n (rector of the National University, 1933-34). According to scholars like Soledad Loaeza, the PAN offered the only political expression for the middle class. But, the middle class was far more diverse. Some sectors favored the moderate right-wing presidential candidate Juan Andreu Almaz?n who ran under the National Unification Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario de Unificaci?n Nacional, or PRUN). Others supported the Party of the Mexican Revolution (Partido Revolucionario Mexicano, or PRM) candidate as the C?rdenas government sought to dilute the opposition by bringing the middle-class public employees into the party. Manuel ?vila Camacho (1940-1946) distanced himself from his predecessor?s socialism and extreme nationalism, pacified the church, opened up educational and economic opportunities, and allowed relative freedom of the mass media. After 1940 and particularly with rapid economic growth after 1945, a diverse and expanded middle class had greater room in the political arena and in the social and cultural life of Mexico City. 14 Chapter 1: Fashioning a Promising Social Category: Mexico City?s Porfirian Middle Class Introduction In a time of relative political stability and economic growth during the administration of President Porfirio D?az (1867-1910), Mexican intellectuals and politicians debated Mexico?s future. For many, the country?s promise depended on the condition of Mexico?s middle class. They agreed that the middle class was crucial to economic and social progress and the evolution of a political democracy. They disagreed, however, on the state of Mexico?s middle class. Some writers criticized its members as spendthrifts who cared more about appearance than substance. Others praised the class?s membership as representing the epitome of virtue, morality, and national pride. The intellectual categorization of the middle class offered an arbitrary ideal based on imagined European standards. In Mexico City, this growing middle class asserted itself as bearers of culture, respectability and national pride. These residents of the federal district included the traditional middling class of professionals, small businessmen, and high-end artisans, as well as a growing number of office workers in the public and the private sectors. Yet the respectability, honor, and decency that signaled middling status were not innate traits. Rather, manners and comportment were cultural markers that required an individual?s attention to their display and performance. Many fledgling members of the middle class looked to novels and short stories to help map out middle-class sensibilities. By providing prescriptions of behavior and hygiene, popular conduct manuals served as guides to bodily conduct. The roving and voyeuristic eye found in the pages of books revealed 15 a fascination with visual culture and spectacle found in photography, early silent movies, and consumer culture. Mexico City?s new suburbs like Santa Mar?a la Ribera provided a spatial mapping of class, while neighborhood civic and religious organizations provided important means of class identification and social networks. Porfirian Intellectuals Imagine Mexico?s Middle Class Seeking to map out the social hierarchy of Mexico, positivist intellectuals used a system of demarcation based on race, labor, diet, clothing, and sexual behavior. Sociologist Andr?s Molina Enr?quez divided Mexico?s social classes by ethnicity. The mestizo (mixed race) characterized the middle class rather than indio (indigenous) lower classes and criollo (Spanish-descended) upper classes.15 Similarly, writer and educator Justo Sierra remarked that the middle class had its roots in the mestizo.16 In evolutionary terms, the mestizo majority would emerge with a middle- class profile.17 Mexican intellectuals also sorted social classes by forms of employment. Molina Enr?quez categorized middle-class mestizos as directors, professionals, 15 Andr?s Molina Enr?quez, ?Las clases sociales mexicanas durante el Porfiriato,? in Las clases sociales en M?xico (M?xico, DF: Editorial Nuestro Tiempo, 1985 [1968]), 60-68. Andr?s Molina Enr?quez (1865-1940) was a positivist sociologist. The text is an excerpt from his book Los grandes problemas nacionales published in 1908. See also Robert M. Buffington and William E. French, ?The Culture of Modernity,? in Oxford History of Mexico, eds. Michael C. Meyer and William H. Beezley (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 412. 16 Justo Sierra, The Political Evolution of the Mexican People, trans. Charles Ramsdell (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1969), 360. 17 Justo Sierra quoted in Mois?s Gonz?lez Navarro, ?El Porfiriato: La vida social,? vol. 4, ed. 1 of Historia Moderna de M?xico, ed. Daniel Cos?o Villegas (M?xico, DF: Editorial Hermes, 1957), 387. 16 employees, army personnel, overseers, small property owners, and ranchers.18 Professionals with a small clientele, second-class public employees, school directors, journalists, and commercial employees defined the middle class for Manuel Casas.19 Other writers listed members of the middle class as men of agriculture, small business and industry, public employees, and professionals.20 Jorge Vera Esta?ol described ?decent people? (gente decente) as an expanding middle class, composed often by mestizos who felt a repulsion to all manual or mechanical work and who were ?intelligent, educated, ambitious [and] who sought to mix with the rich and comfortable classes [and] dress like them.?21 Other thinkers identified the middle class by their clothing style, eating habits, and sexual behaviors. According to sociologist Julio Guerrero, the middle-class man dressed in pants, a vest, a cashmere shirt, a plaid coat, and a felt hat. His female counterpart wore a traditional shawl (rebozo) in the house and a finer black shawl on the street. They drank pulque like the lower classes, but distinguished themselves by eating with utensils, using paraffin to light their homes, and employing domestic help. While promiscuity set apart the lower classes, middle-class artisans and low-level commercial employees and government clerks practiced polygamy. Guerrero 18 At the same time, Molina Enr?quez maintained that in Mexico a true middle class did not exist. He argued that mestizo directors, professionals, and employees were in fact a privileged class who lived off workers (trabajadores). See Molina Enr?quez, 68. 19 Jes?s Romero Flores, La revoluci?n como nostros la vimos (M?xico, DF: Instituto Nacional de Estudios Hist?ricos de la Revoluci?n Mexicana, 1963), 47. 20 Mois?s Gonz?lez Navarro, ?El Porfiriato: La vida social,? vol. 4, ed. 1 of Historia Moderna de M?xico, ed. Daniel Cos?o Villegas (M?xico, DF: Editorial Hermes, 1957), 388. 21 Quoted in John Lear, Workers, Neighbors, and Citizens: The Revolution in Mexico City (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001) 56. Jorge Vera Esta?ol (1873-1958) was an upper-class lawyer and politician. 17 characterized middle-class men as frequently unfaithful, fickle, feeble and with ?incredulous weak volition.? Their wives, although vain, remained faithful and religiously devout. Outside of their knowledge of the catechism and the lives of saints, the women knew little about science or the profane arts. Instead, they filled their time with frivolous theater and parties.22 Criticisms of Mexico?s middle class reveal the prejudices and idealized notions of intellectuals. Justo Sierra explained the vices of the middle class by blaming individuals of lower social levels who sought middle-class status. Bureaucracy and education allowed for a ?constant infiltration between the social classes? that hampered any cure for their alcoholism and superstition.23 In another line of criticism, an editorial of the newspaper El Imparcial blamed middle-class poverty on clerical education that imbued individuals with the virtue of generosity.24 For his part, author Jos? Tom?s de Cu?llar used caricature and satire to criticize the bourgeois hedonism of the middle class and its poor imitations and failed attempts at refinement. In particular, he attacked families of ?new money,? products of the city?s growing commerce who formed part of an incipient and heterogeneous middle class.25 22 Mois?s Gonz?lez Navarro, ?El Porfiriato: La vida social,? vol. 4, ed. 1 of Historia Moderna de M?xico, ed. Daniel Cos?o Villegas (M?xico, DF: Editorial Hermes, 1957), 384-85. See also Buffington and French, ?The Culture of Modernity,? 423. 23 Justo Sierra, The Political Evolution of the Mexican People, trans. Charles Ramsdell (Austin: Univerity of Texas Press, 1969), 360. 24 El Imparcial, November 22, 1908, p. 1. 25 Jos? Tom?s de Cu?llar, The Magic Lantern: Having a Ball and Christmas Eve, trans. Margaret Carson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). For a selective list of novels and shorts stories about the middle class, see Marcelo Pogolotti, ed., La clase media en M?xico (M?xico, DF: Editorial Diogenes, 1972). 18 In 1908, President D?az echoed some of these complaints in his interview with American journalist James Creelman. D?az listed the defects of the middle class as oversleeping and arriving late to work, using familial influence to obtain government employment, being frequently ill, refusing to miss bullfights, endlessly entertaining themselves, having style with no substance, marrying young and having many children, spending more than they earned, and ?drugging? themselves with usury in order to celebrate posadas and saints? day parties.26 Echoing the president?s sentiments, contemporary critics had little sympathy for the middle class? woes during a series of economic crisis beginning at the turn-of- the century.27 Instead, newspaper articles blamed the vain habits of the middle class. One writer condemned the employee who earned hundred-fifty pesos monthly, but bought a new suit and tie twice a month. The same employee attended the theater twice a week, strolled frequently on the Paseo de la Reforma, invited his friends to drink and eat at his expense, and subscribed to the opera. A loan allowed the employee to afford a carriage, a house, and a legion of servants.28 On the other hand, some Porfirian commentators lauded Mexico?s middle class. A newspaper editorial in El Tiempo described the middle class as Catholic, anti-American, hardworking, patriotic, and honest taxpayers who exemplified 26 Mois?s Gonz?lez Navarro, Sociedad y cultural en el porfiriato (M?xico, DF: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1994), 147. 27 See Eugenio Sancho Riba, ?Las condiciones economicas en los ultimos a?os del Porfiriato y la clase media,? Heredia 5:9-10 (1980): 9-32. 28 El Imparcial, October 11, 1900, p. 1. On further criticisms of middle-class spending, see El Imparcial, May 9, 1900, p. 1; El Imparcial, May 20, 1900, p. 1; El Imparcial, November 19, 1900, p. 1. One article stated clearly that ?saving is the highest expression of domination that a man can exercise over himself.? See El Imparcial, May 11, 1900, p. 1. 19 moderation and dignity.29 Justo Sierra extolled the men of the middle class and their leadership, especially during the mid-nineteenth century constitutional reform movement.30 A vocal educator and statesman, Sierra considered the middle class responsible for the Porfirian ideological turn toward positivism. He also praised President D?az, whom he considered both a product and producer of Mexico?s modern middle class.31 According to Sierra, the humble middle-class origins of D?az made him a good ruler. In an ironic comment in light of his own autocratic rule and in contrast to his criticism of middle-class behavior, D?az told James Creelman that the middle class was ?the active element of society [who] sustained true democratic institutions.?32 The Changing Urban Economy and Decline of the Artisan Class By the end of the nineteenth century, economic and social transformations brought by industrialization transformed the working lives of many of Mexico City?s artisans who had long considered themselves a part of the middle sector.33 29 Mois?s Gonz?lez Navarro, ?El Porfiriato: La vida social,? vol. 4, ed. 1 in Historia Moderna de M?xico, ed. Daniel Cos?o Villegas (M?xico, DF: Editorial Hermes, 1957), 388. Ezequiel Ch?vez (1868-1946) was a lawyer and educator. 30 Justo Sierra cited in Leopoldo Zea, Positivism in Mexico, trans. Josephine H. Schulte (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974), 30. 31 All citations from Justo Sierra, The Political Evolution of the Mexican People, trans. Charles Ramsdell (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1969), 360-361. These writings of Sierra first appeared as two parts of the book M?xico y su evoluci?n social commissioned by President D?az and published between 1900 and 1902. 32 Mois?s Gonz?lez Navarro, ?El Porfiriato: La vida social,? 389. 33 There is extensive literature on artisans in the colonial period. See, for example, Jorge Gonz?lez Angulo Aguirre, Artesanado y ciudad a finales del siglo XVIII (M?xico, DF: Fondo de Cultura Econ?mica, 1983). For the nineteenth century, see Carlos Illades and Adriana Sandoval, Espacio social y representati?n literaria en el siglo XIX (M?xico, DF: UAM Ixtapalapa, 2000), esp. chapter 4, ?Im?genes del trabajo?. 20 Industrialization impacted artisan crafts at different times and in varying degrees.34 A 1910 census demonstrates that food and beverage workers continued to belong to traditional occupations, such as those of making tortillas, candy, and biscuits, while chemical workers included traditional artisans, such as soap and candle makers. Textile artisans suffered by far the worse decline with the introduction of textile factories. By 1898, Mexico had 125 cotton textile factories and artisan occupations like shoemakers, hatmakers, and weavers, declined 37 percent, 35 percent, and 42 percent respectively. However, the number of seamstresses increased 45 percent over the twenty-year period. This may reflect large numbers of women who sewed piecework for large department stores, including a growing number of middle-class women who turned to sewing to supplement household income in times of financial necessity.35 Artisans involved in the market of high-end goods and services remained strong due to a robust consumer demand for specialty work and products. This sturdy market was likely the result of a growing number of consumers who benefited from a growth in commercial and administrative employment. Artisan occupations that held steady or increased in numbers included those related to areas of construction and renovation, such as carpenters, plasterers, cabinetmakers, and master builders; jobs related to highly-skilled decorative work, including decorative painters, guilders, bookbinders, silversmiths; technical skills, such as watchmakers and printers; and, 34 Donald B. Keesing, ?Structural Change Early in Development: Mexico?s Changing Industrial and Occupational Structure from 1895 to 1950,? The Journal of Economic History 29/4 (December 1969): 716-738. 35 Keesing, ?Structural Change Early in Development,? 720. 21 lastly, to high-quality textile workers, including dressmakers, tailors, and rug makers, and furniture upholsters.36 In general, economic boom and bust cycles affected the stability of artisan professions. For example, guilders and silversmiths dropped by 22 and 26 percent respectively between 1900 and 1910, which reflected the growing economic crisis that hit Mexico at the beginning of the twentieth century. Overall, the number of high-value artisans as a percentage of all middle-class occupations steadily declined from 28 percent in 1890 to 19 percent in 1910. Some of these artisans and their families were forced into factory work. Numerous studies argue that Mexico City?s artisans became part of and identified as the proletarian class.37 Accordingly, historians have argued that artisans in general began to lose their secure position in Mexico?s social, political, and economic life.38 Yet studies may have exaggerated artisans? decline. As historians became more interested in workers and unionization, they ignored the number of artisans who served as the backbone of the Catholic workers? movement.39 A short-lived newspaper La Clase media published between 1907 and 1909 for Mexico?s artisan class reveals a proud attitude among craftsmen and -women who 36 Unfortunately, the census material does not differentiate between employees and owners of artisan workshops. 37 For an overview of the historiography on cross-class comparison and labor history in Latin America, see Rodney D. Anderson, ?Guadalajara?s Artisans and Shopkeepers, 1842-1907: The Origins of a Mexican Petite Bourgeoisie,? in Five Centuries of Mexican History, eds. Virginia Guedea and Jaime E. Rodr?guez O. (Irvine, CA: University of California, 1992), 286-299. 38 John Mason Hart, Revolutionary Mexico: The Coming and Process of the Mexican Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997 [1987]), 55. 39 Manuel Ceballos Ram?rez, ?Las organizaciones laborales cat?licas a finales del siglo XIX,? in Estado, Iglesia y Sociedad en M?xico, Siglo XIX, eds. ?lvaro Matute, Evelia Trejo, and Brian Connaughton (M?xico, DF: UNAM, 1995), 367-398. 22 considered themselves members of Mexico?s middle class. The newspaper was an organ of the government-backed mutual aid society El Gran C?rculo de Obreros, which was concerned with the uplift of the artisan class. An ongoing column of the newspaper entitled ?Conversations with the Workers? extolled the virtues of hard work, savings, temperance, and abstinence from smoking. The figure of the artisan represented a strong work ethic and independence free from class exploitation.40 The lack of evident contradiction between a manual worker and a member of the middle class suggests that non-manual work was not a prerequisite of middle-class membership at this time. One article maintained that there was no differentiation between manual and intellectual work because ?it was the same to handle a pen as to work a machine.?41 The figure of the artisan under the banner of the middle class contradicts the assumption of Hispanic culture as traditionally disdainful of manual labor.42 The rhetorical uplift found in the newspaper La Clase media reflects the struggle for survival of artisan craftsmanship in a period of changes to the labor force. One article reminded parents of the importance of teaching a trade to their children in order to instill a strong work ethic and good habits.43 Yet young people apparently 40 ?Trabajo y ahorro,? La Clase media, January 1, 1909. See also ?El trabajo,? La Clase media, June 22, 1908; El trabajo, La Clase media, July 30, 1908; ?Idea general de trabajo? La Clase media, September 8, 1908; and ?La dignidad de trabajo?, La Clase media, January 9, 1909. 41 ?Los heroes del trabajo,? La Clase media, February 1, 1909. 42 Michael Katz makes the argument that at least prior to industrialization the difference in prestige between non-manual and manual occupations may not always have been as great as researchers have assumed. Michael B. Katz, ?Occupational Classification in History,? Journal of Interdisciplinary History 3/1 (Summer 1972): 69. 43 ?Lo que olvidan muchos padres,? La Clase media, June 15, 1908. 23 showed a lack of interest in artisan and technical trades. Indeed, many articles reveal a fear that young people were shunning artisan trades and choosing instead to seek office employment. In 1910, an article lamented that ?modern young people feel aversion for the honorable work of the workshop and fields.? Instead, they were seduced by the hope of obtaining a professional title. They preferred to sit in a government office or stand behind a store counter. Thus, the fields were left uncultivated, and the workshops deserted, and industry in a state of infancy and poverty.44 In defense of the artisan craft, some writers discredited office work as effeminizing. One article, which pointed out the difference between blue-collar workers (obreros) and white-collar workers, called the latter ?se?oritos,? a disparaging and effeminate term. While the obrero was a man who worked hard and produced something useful, the se?orito produced nothing and lived off the work of others. An inept and pretentious employee, the ostentatious and lazy se?orito treated the hours at the office like a social gathering (tertulia) and ended the so-called laborious day in the cantina.45 Yet the newspaper writers increasing referenced the public office employee in the pages of the newspaper. Some articles, like ?Public employees are not pariahs,? even defended government employees whom they categorized as members of Mexico?s middle class. 46 The appearance of the office employee in the pages of a newspaper oriented primarily toward the artisan provides further evidence beyond the 44 ?La juventud y del taller,? La Clase media, July 3, 1910. 45 ?Obreros y Se?oritos,? La Clase media, July 1, 1908. 46 ?Los empleados p?blicos no son parias,? La Clase media, October 10, 1909. 24 census material of a corollary relationship between the decline in artisans and rise in middle-low professionals. Artisan families likely began to send their sons and daughters to school in order to escape the downward social mobility of factory work. As evidenced by the newspaper La Clase media, some sons no longer followed in the footsteps of their fathers. Instead, they chose to become white-collar office workers. Middle-Class Cultural Formation: Education and the Importance of Manners A structural analysis of occupations related to market, state, and urban expansion offers one way to understand the emergence of a modern middle class. An analysis of how individuals defined their middle-class position according to cultural markers offers another. Porfirian educators aimed to have schools impart the values and manners befitting of middle-class status. Textbooks outlined civic and moral responsibilities to the family and the nation, while identifying moral prescriptions and modes of conduct essential to middle-class identity. Students learned that self- discipline expressed through hard work, honesty, cleanliness, and orderly life formed the foundation for social order.47 Convinced that schooling was a means to impart social and class values, middle-class parents took their children?s educational experience seriously. This was especially true for parents who had the option to send their children to private schools. In his memoirs of growing up in Porfirian Mexico City to a self-described middle-class family, Ram?n Beteta remembers his parents? arguments over their 47 Mary Kay Vaughan, ?Ideological Changes in Mexican Educational Policy, Programs, and Texts (1920-1940),? Los intelectuales y el poder en M?xico, eds. Roderic A. Camp, Charles A. Hale, and Josefina Zoraida V?zquez (M?xico, DF: Colegio de M?xico, 1991), 516. 25 children?s schooling.48 His father had lived in a tenement as a child, but his mother came from a family with money. Beteta?s cousins on his mother?s side attended Mascarones, a Jesuit school in Santa Mar?a la Ribera for children of wealthy families. Beteta?s father, a staunch liberal, wanted his sons educated in a secular school. Beteta?s mother objected vigorously to secular schools that she declared were for little paupers and the children of housemaids. How could her sons go there, she remarked, when ?God only knows what diseases they might pick up, and what ?little animals? they might bring home!?49 Beteta ended up in a newly-opened school in the well-to-do neighborhood of San Rafael where his mother was relieved to know that most of the children came from ?good families.? Although not all the children were rich, Beteta remembers that school officials made sure that none of the students were really poor.? The school?s strict discipline meant days of remaining motionless and silent, fulfilling military-style orders, and passing cleanliness inspections. Etiquette manuals offered another way to learn the values and mannerisms befitting proper citizenship and middle-class life. Written by the Venezuelan Manuel Antonio Carre?o and first published in 1854, the Compendio del Manual de Urbanidad y Buenas Maneras quickly became a popular text throughout Latin America. By 1897, some nine editions had been published in Mexico City by Librer?a 48 Ram?n Beteta (1901-1965) founded the National University?s School of Economics where he was a professor from 1924-1942. He was the campaign director for Mexico?s President Miguel Alem?n Vald?s (1946-1952). His various political appointments included General Director of the Department of National Statistics in the Ministry of Industry and Commerce (1933-1935), Subsecretary of the Ministry of International Relations (1936-1940), and Minster of Finance (1946-1952). 49 Ram?n Beteta, Jarano, trans. John Upton (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1970), 25. 26 Madrile?a.50 Carre?o?s Manual de Urbanidad proved popular as major societal/spatial shifts took place: the transformation of the city center as an administrative and commercial hub, migration to the capital, changes in occupational stratification, and the development of new urban spaces. New faces appeared in the streets of the capital as members of the lower classes and peasants, displaced by railroads and suffering from a lack of access to land, migrated to Mexico City, to find employment.51 A burgeoning state bureaucracy opened its doors to artisan sons and daughters who hoped to maintain or to assume middle-class status through their white-collar employment. Rapid changes in the city?s population and employment structure transformed urban life and blurred traditional lines of class. Conduct manuals provided a crucial means to access cultural capital in a society with great social fluidity.52 The prescriptions helped them see and be seen according to a visual hierarchy of taste, class, and respectability. 50 The manual has since been continually republished. All citations refer to Manuel Antonio Carre?o, Compendio del Manual de Urbandiad Y Buenas Maneras (M?xico, DF: Editoria Cl?sica, 1963). I will subsequently refer to it as the Manual de Urbanidad. 51 Migrants into Mexico City also included merchants, lawyers, or individuals who had occupations connected with administrative and artistic professions. Alejandra Moreno Toscano and Carlos Aguirre Anaya, ?Migrations to Mexico City in the Nineteenth Century: Research Approaches,? Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 17/1 (February 1975). 52 Valentina Torres Septi?n, ?Manuales de conducta, urbanidad y buenos modales durante el Porfiriato. Notas sobre el comportamiento femenino,? in Modernidad, tradici?n y alteridad: La ciudad de M?xico en el cambio del siglo, eds. Claudio Agostini y Elisa Speckman (M?xico, DF: UNAM, 2001). See also Beatriz Gonz?lez Stephan, ?Modernizaci?n y disciplinamiento: La formaci?n del ciudano: Del espacio p?blico y privado,? in Esplendores y miseries del siglo XIX: Cultura y sociedad en Am?rica Latina, eds. Beatriz Gonz?lez Stephan, Javier Lasarte, Graciela Montaldo y Maria Julia Daroqui (Caracas: Monte Avila, 1994); Beatriz Gonz?lez Stephan, ?Escritura y modernizaci?n: la domesticaci?n de la barbarie,? Revista Iberoamericana 60 (January-June 1994): 1-22. 27 Private Lives Under Public Scrutiny The notion of respectability in Manuel Carre?o?s Manual de Urbanidad hinges on the regulation of the body and the dichotomies of inside/outside, clean/dirty, and public/private. Prescriptions that attempt to secure the stability of the body?s boundaries defined the Mexican middle-class body against the lower-class body, which lacked control of or shame about its openings of reproduction, digestion, and excretion.53 Hands in the orifices of the mouth, eyes, and nose give cause for horror and disgust. Carre?o explicitly warned the reader that it was a grave mistake to ?impregnate the fingers into the wetness of the mouth.?54 As one of the most visible openings of the body, the mouth and the act of eating caused great concern because of their ability to destabilize the boundary between the external and the internal.55 Table manner etiquette turned eating into a highly regulated activity and ensured propriety during one of the body?s most transgressive activities. Hygiene also helped to distinguish between dirty and disorderly bodies and clean and normative ones. In the Manual de Urbanidad, the reader was urged to examine his/her nails often in order to clean them at the moment they had lost their ?natural whiteness.?56 The text defined cleanliness as a natural marker of a ?civilized? body. An entire chapter entitled ?Cleanliness? was dedicated to the use of proper hygiene to protect against threats of contamination. Each part of the body required 53 Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, trans. Helene Iswolsky (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1968), 317. 54 Carre?o, Compendio del Manual, 33. 55 Pamela Gilbert quoting Maggie Kilgour in Disease, Desire, and the Body in Victorian Women's Popular Novels (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 20. Gilbert discusses eating in the context of metaphors for reading. 56 Carre?o, Compendio del Manual, 33. 28 particular methods of care with soap, water, and brushes.57 Rules partitioned the body into separate areas of concern and regiment by time and place.58 Cleanliness required access to water and soap and the privilege of both time and space. Bathrooms were a luxury that few families could afford. While some houses had bathtubs of tinplate or wood lined with metal, most Mexico City residents went to public bathhouses. The city?s limited distribution of water made cleanliness a challenge, yet served as one of the most visible markers of respectability and good citizenship. Self-regulation and bodily hygiene changed an individual?s relationship to the body. Hygiene guidelines promoted the body as an object of self-care and improvement. But the fear of the outside gaze that appears frequently in Carre?o?s Manual de Urbanidad also suggests notions of shame and honor that had long been a part of Mexican society. Carre?o evoked the fear and horror that ?an accident? in the middle of the night may expose the reader?s naked body to the shame of an outsider?s gaze.59 The awareness of possible failure in the eyes of others heightened the fear of exposure, embarrassment, and humiliation. Shame promised a painful experience of self-consciousness, resulting from a sudden recognition of a discrepancy between one?s own behavior and that of one?s peers.60 Rules of respectability applied in the privacy of the home as well as elsewhere reassured the reader that a person?s private behavior matched his or her public 57 Carre?o, Compendio del Manual, 34. 58 Carre?o, Compendio del Manual, 32. 59 Carre?o, Compendio del Manual, 31. 60 Rita Felski, ?Nothing to Declare: Identity, Shame and the Lower Middle Class, PMLA 115/1 (January 2000): 33-45. 29 persona. The emphasis on the need for self-control beyond the eyes of others reveals an internalization of the ?disciplinary power? famously described by Michel Foucault.61 Thus, even in the privacy of the home and out of sight from others, men were never to appear in bad shoes, in a sleeveless shirt, or without a tie. Women had to take even greater care to never appear slovenly.62 At night, clothes were to be changed with honest modesty. One should never appear uncovered (descubiertos), even while sleeping.63 Carre?o?s repeated warnings of an external eye or outsider?s look, particularly in relation to the window, emphasized the categories of class and gender as acts of performance and sets of manipulated codes rather than essential aspects of identity defined.64 The window invoked an image of a display case as well as a performance space or stage in which individuals were seen and identified. Thus, the metaphor of the window also called attention to the spectator who had the power both to affirm and question markers of gender, class, and sexuality.65 Carre?o cautioned against appearing frequently in windows, doorways, or on balconies that faced towards the street.66 A woman who exhibited herself too comfortably in the public eye invited 61 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 138. 62 Carre?o, Compendio del Manual, 48. 63 Carre?o, Compendio del Manual, 45. 64 For understandings of gender as performance, see Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990). 65 Carre?o, Compendio del Manual, 49, 90. 66 Carre?o, Compendio del Manual, 89. 30 criticism and a questioning of her virtue.67 The manual played a dual role in simultaneously teaching readers not only how to perform, but also how to read the visual codes of gender and class in others.68 Members of the middle class learned to identify the ?we? hailed by the conduct manual as they moved about the urban streets.69 Readers of Carre?o?s popular etiquette book intersected with the privileging of the visual in late nineteenth-century culture. Magic lanterns, photography, and the debut of early silent cinema offered new types of scopophilic pleasures and spectatorial experiences. By 1865, there were twenty-three photography studios in Mexico City.70 The first cinema opened in 1896. By 1905-1906, the city boasted thirty-four cinemas and eleven theatres.71 In a similar fashion, novel glass-making technology allowed for the production of large glass sheets for use in museums and department stores.72 The invisible wall of solid crystal transformed the viewing 67 The nineteenth century craze for exhibitions and world?s fairs simultaneously led doctors to define exhibitionism as a pathology. The label ?exhibitionist? for a pathological individual was coined in 1888. See Sylvia Molloy, ?The Politics of Posing,? Hispanisms and Homosexualities, eds. Sylvia Molloy and Robert Irwin (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998), 143. 68 In her study of literary realism and photography in late nineteenth-century Britain, Nancy Armstrong makes clear that both text and image belonged to the same cultural project that showed readers how to play the game of modern identity from the position of observers. Nancy Armstrong, Fiction in the Age of Photography: The Legacy of British Realism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). 69 Louis Althusser, ?Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation),? trans. Ben Brewster, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971). 70 See Patricia Mass? Zendejas, Simulacro y elegancia en tarjetas de visita: Fotograf?as de Cruces y Campa (M?xico, DF: Instituto Nacional de Antropolog?a e Historia, 1998), 41. 71 See Aurelio de los Reyes, Cine y Sociedad en M?xico, 1896-1930 (M?xico, DF: Instituto de Investigaciones Est?ticas, UNAM, 1996), 65. 72 For a study of nineteenth-century Mexican architecture, see Israel Katzman La arquitectura del siglo XIX en M?xico (M?xico, DF: UNAM, 1973). For a general history of nineteenth-century construction materials and architecture, see Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time, and Architecture (Cambridge, MA: 31 experience as the modern observer became more passive and distanced from the object of its gaze. In addition to Carre?o?s conduct manual, other forms of popular fiction emphasized the roaming gaze and the importance of the visual in judging class pretensions and gender respectability. Like the conduct manual, short stories aided readers in their attempts to negotiate urban spaces and their self-fashioning. In one of Manuel Guti?rrez N?jera popular short stories, ?The Streetcar Novel? (La Novela de Tranv?a), the narrator traveled through the city in a streetcar.73 Through the text, the reader joined the main character as a fl?neur, the nineteenth-century urban character who strolled through the city observing its inhabitants and other amusements. Justo Sierra described the verb ?to fl?neur? as ?to wander jostled by people, leaning against the store display windows?gazing into the interiors of houses.?74 Guti?rrez N?jera turned the roving eye of the fl?neur into a printed digest and offered middle-class readers public scenes for private consumption.75 The eyes of the chronicler acted as a window through which the reader could look at the city and its inhabitants. This type Harvard University Press, 1946). For a discussion of the museum as an early form of exhibitionary architecture, see Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics (New York: Routledge, 1995). 73 Manuel Guti?rrez N?jera, ?La Novela de Tranv?a,? Cuentos completos y otra narraciones (M?xico, DF: Fondo de Cultura Econ?mica, 1958), 154. 74 Justo Sierra quoted in Julio Ramos, Culture and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Latin America, trans. John D. Blanco (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001), 128. 75 Vanessa Schwartz discussing Walter Benjamin, Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin- de-Si?cle Paris (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 27. 32 of gaze fascinated late nineteenth-century readers, who eagerly consumed repeated publications of Guti?rrez N?jera?s short story.76 While male and female members of the middle class read published chronicles, both genders were not entitled to the same gaze. The fl?neur was a male nineteenth-century urban character whose class and gender privilege turned the city into possibilities of geographic, if not sexual, exploration of ?unknown worlds and virgin regions.?77 He could gaze upon the city without calling into questioning his respectability.78 Middle-class females, on the other hand, risked potential speculation on their class-status and feminine virtue by going out in public. Despite her well- dressed appearance, the woman on the tram in Guti?rrez N?jera?s story became the object of the narrator?s speculation that she was on her way to meet her lover. Although the gaze of the female stroller was considered sexually provocative and belonged to the prostitute, fl?nerie was not simply for the privileged bourgeois male. In Mexico City, as in Europe, it was a gaze that female members of the middle class could experience in popular nineteenth-century texts and cultural activities.79 In addition, philanthropic societies opened up working-class homes to the scrutinizing 76 The short story ?La novela de tranv?a? was published four times in periodicals between 1882-1888 and included in two anthologies, one in 1883 and the other in 1898. 77 Guti?rrez N?jera, 155. Numerous works exist on the character of the fl?neur, particularly in Western Europe. See, for example, Walter Benjamin, ?The Fl?neur? in Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism (London: Verso, 1983). 78 Although the city remained largely the domain of the male writer, more research on turn-of-the- century female writers such as Mar?a Enriqueta and Laura M?ndez de Cuenca might give insight into women's urban experience. For a British example of the female writer as a fl?nuese, see Deborah Parsons, Streetwalking the Metropolis: Women, the City, and Modernity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 79 For example, the woman's magazine El Correo de la Se?oras published La novela de tranv?a in 1887. 33 gaze of middle-class women as charity workers while department stores offered them a safe space to look at and linger over the objects on display. Late nineteenth-century modernization and urbanization changed the visual practices of the members of the middle class. The modern city multiplied visual stimuli and situated viewers within a context of rapidly changing images. Justo Sierra remarked how the stroller in the city ?wander[ed] with the certainty of perpetual distractions for the eyes.?80 The department store demanded a similar fleeting and distracted form of looking with its multiplicity of objects on display. New forms of travel, including the train and the streetcar, produced a similar type of impressionistic perception as well as provided a new panoramic gaze, later captured by the eye of the movie camera.81 Guti?rrez N?jera?s ?The Streetcar Novel? exemplified this new type of looking. In a similar way to the cinema, the narrator sat within the contained and stationary space of the streetcar while the scenes of the city moved across the rider?s ? and the reader?s ? vision. Similarly, in the short story entitled ?Having a Ball,? (Baile y cochino) by Jos? Thom?s de Cu?llar, the young woman Enriquetta watched the outside world from her window in which ?everything was in motion, creating fleeting images that barely left an impression on her retina before being erased by another image, and then another, in a never-ending vertigo.?82 Short stories contained in de Cu?llar?s book The Magic Lantern (La literna m?gica) including ?Having a 80 Justo Sierra quoted in Ramos, 128. 81 In Western Europe, writers remarked that the speed of train travel caused the landscape to look like streaks of colors. Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: Trains and Travel in the 19th Century (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1977), 59-60. 82 Jos? Tom?s de Cu?llar, The Magic Lantern, 53. The short story ?Having a Ball? (Baile y cochino) was first published in 1889 in Mexico City. 34 Ball,? reflected the influence of photography. The scenes in the short stories read like snapshots that exposed the private lives of the characters. In ?Having a Ball,? the reader joined the narrator?s voyeurism of private scenes that included tiptoeing into a woman?s bedroom. Consumerism, Class Respectability, and Threats to Middle-Class Gender While male writers peered behind the doors of the home and even into women?s boudoirs, an increasing number of middle-class women ventured out of the home to work, study, shop, and enjoy the city?s amusements. The boundaries of the middle-class home became more porous than ever before, as entertaining, shopping, theater going, promenading, home visiting, and philanthropy increasingly became the norm. Philanthropic societies provided legitimate grounds for women?s increased public participation by expanding their traditional role as caregivers. New entertainment and leisure spaces drew women out of the domestic sphere. They attended the theatre and went to the cinema, rode bicycles and learned to roller skate.83 Owners of Mexico City?s roller-skating rink offered women a discount to encourage them to participate despite concern expressed by ?respectable? families.84 Department stores offered se?oras decentes an opportunity to meet friends and spend leisure time outside the home.85 83 William H. Beezley, Judas and the Jockey Club and Other Episodes of Porfirian Mexico. See also early photographs in Gustavo Casasola, Seis siglos de historia gr?fica de M?xico, 1325-1976, vol. 2 (M?xico, DF: Editorial Gustavo Casasola, 1968). 84 Buffington and French, ?The Culture of Modernity,? 429. 85 Steven B. Bunker, ??Consumers of Good Taste:? Marketing Modernity in Northern Mexico, 1890- 1910,? Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 13/2 (Summer 1997): 227-269. 35 Traditionally, a woman?s place in the home and exclusion from the paid workforce signaled her family?s middle-class status. Her role as the so-called ?guardian angel of the home? protected and ensured her virtue and purity from the social and moral contagion of the street. Porfirian educators and writers rested the moral burden of nation building on women as the mothers and educators of future citizens. A mother?s role involved inculcating in her children a time discipline, respect for authority, work ethic, and belief in progress.86 Women read Carre?o?s Manual de Urbanidad for principles of proper home management, including order, methods, time keeping, and cleanliness.87 Women?s behavior served as a key indicator of the family?s status to outsiders. Carre?o cautioned female readers to appear serious and solemn in public so that they would not attract attention to themselves. Women who imitated the ?confident air? of men appear ?immodest and unrestrained?88 and were suspected of being prostitutes. Dazzling new products like those celebrated at the opening of the department store El Palacio de Hierro in 1891 increasingly enticed women out of the home.89 Along with window displays and elaborate architecture of department stores like El Puerto de Veracruz and El Centro Mercantil, magazines and postcards produced seductive and enticing images of the modern lifestyle. Throughout the city, 86 William E. French, ?Prostitutes and Guardian Angels: Women, Work, and the Family in Porfirian Mexico,? Hispanic American Historical Review 72/4 (November 1992): 529-553. 87 Carre?o, Compendio del Manual, 42 and 43. 88 Carre?o, Compendio del Manual, 29. 89 On consumer culture elsewhere in Mexico, see Steven B. Bunker, ??Consumers of Good Taste.?? See also J?rgen Buchenau, ?Marketing ?Necessities?: The Casa Boker and the Emergence of the Department Store in Fin-de-Si?cle Mexico City,? in North Americanization of Latin America?: Culture, Gender, and Nation in the Americas (Stuttgart, Germany: Verlag Hans-Dieter Heinz, 2004): 89-108. 36 advertisements and announcements covered building walls, creating a varying ?spontaneous collage? as new material was pasted daily.90 Newspaper ads enticed consumers with the latest watches, sewing machines, office supplies, corsets, hair tonics and, by 1908, new inventions like typewriters and gramophones.91 Alluring visual images of turn-of-the-century consumer culture crafted the idea that a modern and cosmopolitan lifestyle lay within the shopper?s reach. Yet for all the consumer hype that emerged at the turn-of-the century, modesty and self-restraint in appearance and behavior continued to provide visual indicators of gendered virtue and respectability. According to Carre?o?s Manual de Urbanidad, those who exaggerated manners, dressed in flamboyant clothes, and wore too much jewelry and make-up were considered ?disorderly,? or women who led a life gone wrong (las mujeres de vida equivoca).92 The association of certain types of dress and conduct with the figure of the prostitute, who was continually although implicitly evoked throughout the manual, powerfully symbolized the counter-image of the respectable middle-class woman. The prostitute was linked to the working- class woman. The same discourse which desexualized women of the middle class hyper-sexualized lower-class women, making them ?naturally? promiscuous.93 90 Unveiled by the Mexico City municipality in 1874, glass kiosks plastered with flyers, posters, and public notices stood in the Z?calo and Alameda. Julieta Ortiz Gait?n, ?Mandatos seductores: Publicidad y consumo como s?mbolo de modernidad en la ciudad de M?xico (1900-1930),? in Miradas Recurrentes I: La ciudad de M?xico en los siglos XIX y XX, ed. Mar?a del Carmen Collado (M?xico, DF: UAM/Instituto Mora, 2004), 84-101. 91 See, for example, various advertisements in El Imparcial, November 22, 1908. 92 Carre?o, Compendio del Manual, 26-27. 93 For a discussion of how Porfirian era writers used the prostitute as an example of the moral and cultural degeneracy of lower-class families and neighborhoods, see William E. French, ?Prostitutes and Guardian Angels.? 37 An emphasis on a moderation in style and unassuming behavior was also true for men. Writers considered the use of excessive jewelry and immoderate consumption in men as effeminate. In a manual from 1874, Jos? J. Rivas stressed that refined and educated men should only wear a pocket watch and chain, and if married, a ring..94 A guidebook on style for governors and political bosses warned against the undue use of cosmetics and other products used to enhance appearances.95 Subdued presentation represented self control, a marker modern manliness of the late nineteenth century. Men who overindulged in their concern for their appearance were derogatorily referred to as ?chickens? (los pollos). The term likely connoted effeminacy in direct opposition to the cock, a traditional symbol of potent masculinity. According to contemporaries, these men were the equivalent of the dandy who walked the streets of London or New York. The prototype was described as a thin, pale, young man with a large stiffened and curled moustache. He had disheveled curled hair with a fringe that reached the eyebrows and was combed up on the sides with a perfume or oil. He wore a half-buttoned shirt that showed off a small celluloid or gold cross and a padded jacket that enhanced his figure. He wore tight pants with fringed sides and lustrous black boots. Accompanying accessories included tight leather gloves, a scarf, eyeglasses, and a top hat. With flamboyant behavior, he attended the theater and opera to attract the attention of admirers. He lived by the motto of working the least 94 Mac?as-Gonz?lez, ?Hombres de mundo,? 288. See also Consolaci?n Salas, ?Las revistas masculinas mexicanas a principios del siglo XX,? in La prensa en M?xico. Momentos y figures relevantes (1810- 1915), eds. Laura Navarrete Maya and Blanca Aguilar Plata (M?xico, DF: Addison Wesley Longman, 1998), 162-176. 95 Manual of governors and jefe politicos (1878) cited in Mac?as-Gonz?lez, ?Hombres de mundo,? 275. 38 possible and spending time causing foolish mischief and courting women.96 The condemnation of the pollo reveals a contemporary concern that overindulgence would endanger Mexican masculinity. While excessive consumption threatened to breed ?loose? public women, for men, overindulgence led to effeminacy, if not homosexuality. For both, immoderation labeled the individual a transgressor of appropriate gender and sexual behavior. The young men of the late Porfiriato represented a grave social problem for writer and critic Jos? Tom?s de Cu?llar. De Cu?llar considered the pollos as bums (vagos) and a quarrelsome lot that joined together to commit all kinds of abuses. They persistently tried to seduce poor girls. Promised comfort and luxury, the girls would end up in prostitution. De Cu?llar identified pollos as youth between the ages of twelve and eighteen who wasted their lives in immoral habits. He argued that many of pollos would have normally become honorable artisans. But they had been swayed to abandon the workshops for work in the bureaucracy, with little concern about its concomitant misery and sparse and insecure remuneration. De Cu?llar advised the middle class to incline itself to the workshop rather than law, engineering, or medicine.97 Despite the criticism by de Cu?llar and others, many young men took to working in the offices of the expanding Porfirian administration. Mexico City Expansion Guti?rrez N?jera?s fl?neur and de Cu?llar?s pollos traversed a metamorphizing cityscape at the end of the nineteenth century. The D?az administration erected stately 96 Gonz?lez Navarro, ?El Porfiriato: La vida social,? 395-396 and 466-467. 97 Gonz?lez Navarro, ?El Porfiriato: La vida social,? 468-9. 39 public buildings alongside new grand structures of commercial enterprise. Long into the nineteenth century, the city had kept much of its traditional pre-industrial mixture of residences, commerce, and trades around the Z?calo. Travel accounts and autobiographies describe the mixed nature of neighborhoods in which colonial mansions housed an elite family in one and several tenants in the other. The tenement (casa de vecinidad or vecindad) commonly had a vertical hierarchy, housing lawyers in spacious quarters around a front patio, and soldiers, washerwoman, and domestic servants behind. In his autobiography, Miguel Macedo, a cient?fico who served in the D?az administration, described growing up in a second-floor apartment above a butcher and a shoemaker.98 The colonial character of the city typified by mixture of wealthy and poor residents disappeared by the end of the late nineteenth century.99 Small artisan shops were pushed out of the center into neighborhoods south of the Alameda and south and northeast of the Z?calo. Some of the small craft shops disappeared completely with the advent of industrialization and factories on the outskirts of the city center. Exceptions included fashion industries on the west side of the Z?calo, such as jewelers, tailors, and seamstresses who mainly sewed in workshops or their homes for the big department stores. Small print shops also remained clustered on the streets southwest of the Z?calo. 98 Miguel Macedo, Mi barrio: ensayo hist?rico sobre la ciudad de M?xico (M?xico, DF: Editorial Cultura, 1930). 99 John Lear, ?Mexico City: Space and Class in the Porfirian Capital, 1884-1910,? Journal of Urban History 22/4 (May 1996): 454-492; R.M. Morse and J.E. Hardoy, eds., Rethinking the Latin American City (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Centre, 1992). 40 In keeping with the country?s economic growth at the end of the nineteenth century, the D?az administration instituted dramatic changes to the capital city.100 The government financed public works that paved and widened streets, erected new monuments and public buildings, and installed new sewage systems and public lighting.101 Wide tree-lined boulevards gave the city a Parisian-look and represented the elite?s desire to see itself and the nation as refined and modern. Such cosmopolitanism required Europeanized citizens. In 1887, the city ordered street newspaper sellers to wear footwear and a decent suit, followed five years later by a restriction of indigenous male clothing on the streets. During the centennial celebrations of 1910, a similar ordinance forced all indigenous men to wear pants.102 Like earlier attempts to regulate space and public behavior, many of the efforts to Europeanize the Indians did nothing to change their status or improve their living conditions.103 Following the 1856 Reform Laws that expropriated church property, new real estate opportunities emerged in the capital. The elite and middle classes abandoned the multiclass downtown area for residential neighborhoods (colonias) on the western 100 Israel Katzman demonstrates that building construction and demolition in Mexico City jumped from less than 100,000 buildings between 1790 and 1870 to over 600,000 buildings in 1870. Foreign investment accounts for much of this large increase. See Israel Katzman, La arquitectura del siglo XIX en M?xico, 19. 101 On Porfirian Mexico City, see Barbara Tenenbaum, ?Streetwise History: The Paseo de la Reforma and the Porfirian State, 1876-1910,? in Rituals of Rule, Rituals of Resistance: Public Celebrations and Popular Culture in Mexico, eds. William Beezley, Cheryl English Martin, and William French (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1994), 127-150; Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo, ?1910 Mexico City: Space and Nation in the City of the Centenario,? Journal of Latin American Studies 28/1 (February 1996): 75-104. 102 Mois?s Gonz?lez Navarro, ?El Porfiriato: La vida social,? 396-397. 103 Pamela Voekel, ?Peeing on the Palace: Bodily Resistance to Bourbon Reforms in Mexico City,? Journal of Historical Sociology 5/2 (June 1992): 183-208. 41 periphery of city, primarily in the area bordering the Paseo de la Reforma.104 The exodus of elite and middle-class families was only one factor in altering the face of the downtown area, which became increasingly devoted to commerce and finance rather than housing and production. High rents and deliberate policies of demolition pushed many workers and urban poor from the downtown core to a dense fringe of tenements nearby, as well as working-class and popular colonias on the southern and eastern edges of city. A transport network allowed the middle class to move beyond Mexico City?s downtown district. Until 1858, the only form of transport consisted of slow horse- drawn vehicles that were useless during the rainy reason when roads were made impassable. Urban public transportation developed with the introduction of streetcars first pulled by horses and mules and later powered by steam. Electrified trolleys began operating in 1896 through a system that utilized overhead cables. The increasing convenience and declining fares of electric cars made it more feasible for professionals of more moderate means to move to the suburbs. Fares in 1910 ranged from five centavos for travel around the city, to thirty centavos for travel to outlying areas. The cost remained prohibitive for many wage earners despite the fact that second-class fares were 30 to 50 percent less than first class. In 1907, records indicate 104 This tree-lined boulevard ? first laid out under Emperor Maximilian?s rule between 1864 -1867 and later inaugurated in 1877 ? played a key role in encouraging investors to plan elite residential subdivisions along its path. On the elaboration of the Paseo de la Reforma, see Barbara Tenenbaum, ?Streetwise History,? in Rituals of Rule, Rituals of Resistance: Public Celebrations and Popular Culture in Mexico. 42 that 72 percent of the capital?s residents paid first class, revealing that streetcars were not yet accessible to the masses.105 As the twentieth century approached, Mexico City increasingly reflected a spatial grid according to class divisions. Wealthy families established the elite neighborhoods of Condesa, Cuauht?moc, and Roma. The smaller lots in the colonias of Guerrero and Santa Mar?a la Ribera attracted middle-class artisans and white-collar employees. Class-specific neighborhoods like Santa Mar?a la Ribera, discussed in Chapter Three, aided the articulation of a middle-class identity. In their everyday relationships with schools, shops, markets, theaters, and churches, residents expressed values related to education, family, and faith. The neighborhood provided a communal space to organize around patriotic festivities, religious observances, and civic issues like the improvement of urban services. Social organizations and political mobilization demonstrated cultural capital, social networks, economic power, and class authority. Conclusion Life in Mexico City at the turn-of-the nineteenth century provided a fertile stage for a growing middle class of shopkeepers, high-end artisans, and office employees. Yet city life was fraught with concerns about how to distinguish between those who deserved middle-class status and those who merely ?passed? as genteel. In a society undergoing profound economic and social shifts, markers of birth no longer proved sufficient to distinguish class status. The hypersensitivity to the complex and 105 The widening of avenues facilitated population mobility and promoted suburban development. See Manuel Vidrio C., ?Sistemas de transporte y expansion urbana: los transv?as,? in Ciudad de M?xico: Ensayo de construcci?n de una historia, ed. Moreno Toscano (M?xico, DF: Instituto Nacional de Antropolog?a e Historia, 1978). See also John Lear, ?Mexico City: Space and Class in the Porfirian Capital, 1884-1910.? 43 confusing codes of class stemmed in part from the threat to an individual?s honor. Inappropriate dress and behavior in the home and on the street could call into question a person?s respectability. Visual codes took on unprecedented prominence, but appearances could be deceiving. Vigilance and scrutiny of others and oneself created an atmosphere of anxiety and shame. However, the most serious threats to this nascent group were still to come. The outbreak of the Revolution in 1910 would bring great challenges for members of the middle class, who were to face violence, disease, food shortages, and unemployment. 44 Chapter 2: Revolutionary Promises for a Suffering Middle Class, 1913-1928 Introduction The ?order and progress? of the Porfirian dream came to an end when the armed conflict of the Mexican Revolution entered the streets of Mexico City in 1913. Included among the many victims suffering hunger and uncertainty were residents who had joined the ranks of the nascent middle class under the relatively stable dictatorship of Porfirio D?az (1877-1911). The story of this ?forgotten? sector in the histories of the Revolution brings to light the centrality of the middle class in the promises made by the first post-revolutionary administrations. Influenced by a transnational discourse on the importance of a middle class to national progress, Mexican politicians and intellectuals heralded this sector as the future of the nation?s development and stability. In the wake of revolutionary destruction, government projects economically supported members of the middle sector in order to build an ideal middle class worthy of its European and American counterparts. But economic and social conflicts hindered efforts to make these projects a reality. In the continuing chaos of the 1920s, the middle class rallied to have these promises fulfilled as they mobilized as voters, tram users, renters, and neighborhood residents. In the process, members forged a diverse set of interests that some claimed represented middle-class values. Contrary to traditional characterizations of the middle class as a passive and apathetic sector of Mexican society, self-identified members of the middle class took 45 an active part in establishing themselves within an enlarged political, social, and cultural public sphere. The Revolution Comes to Mexico City When the Carrancista troops entered Mexico City ?the individuals of the middle class stayed in our houses. Entering the city were men of the proletariat class, brown [atezado] campesinos, some dressed in multicolored clothes and some almost with no clothes. Our dreams of a cultured Mexico had been in vain. This that marched before our eyes was Mexico, the true in all its terrible reality, the one that demanded justice, education and bread.? (Genaro Fern?ndez MacGregor, El r?o de mi sangre, 243) Mexico City became the site of revolutionary factions fighting for its control between 1914 and 1915. Two years before in 1913, the Decena Tr?gica (the army?s coup against the first revolutionary government of Francisco I. Madero) had brought armed conflict to the streets of the nation?s capital for the first time. Hunger became a daily reality, as fighting in the countryside destroyed harvests and displaced rural workers. Disease and death stalked the city. Carts made daily rounds to pick up corpses and the city?s biggest department store offered special prices on mourning clothes.106 Confusion surrounded the circulation of multiple types of monetary bills issued by the various revolutionary divisions. Shortages produced long lines everywhere, including in front of pawnshops. In 1915, one lawyer, who had worked under D?az?s administration, now stood on the street selling tripe. He urged the 106 For personal recollections of this period, see Francisco Ram?rez Plancarte, La ciudad de M?xico durante la revoluci?n constitucionalista (M?xico, DF: Botas, 1941). 46 middle class to give up its ?ridiculous egoism.? In his current circumstances, he had found a deep appreciation for the poorer classes and admired their humility.107 Fears of urban chaos grew as people watched peasant revolutionaries followed by a steady stream of refugees enter the city and occupy houses and churches.108 In his memoirs, Francisco Urquizo remembered that the world turned upside down: ?It was the revolution that arrived for the first time in the City of the Palaces; they were the people of below who rose up, [sullying] with their dusty feet the staircases of Italian marble, the carpets, the enclosed parquet flooring, and the fine imported furniture ? a multitude of unknown people, coming from the North inhabiting our salons, sleeping in our beds, eating off our dishes, and using our cars and our servants.?109 If violence in the countryside led to food shortages in the city, changing factional control of the city impeded the arrival of provisions.110 Between October 1914 and April 1915, the price of beans rose from 20 centavos to 1.50 or 2.00 pesos per kilogram.111 According to Carlos Rivas Coronado, in 1915 the rich stopped attending parties and balls, while the middle class searched for the most efficient means to obtain their basic needs.112 Along with the working class and poor, members 107 Ram?rez Plancarte, La ciudad de M?xico, 398. 108 Ram?rez Plancarte, La ciudad de M?xico, 398. 109 Francisco L. Urquizo, Recuerdo que? Visiones aisladas de la Revoluci?n (M?xico, DF: Ediciones Botas, 1934), 335-336. 110 Zapatistas impeded the delivery of provisions and of water from the south and Villistas cut provisions coming from the west. In 1915, Conventional and Constitutional forces alternated in the occupation of Mexico City. Erica Berra Stoppa, ?La expansi?n de la Ciudad de M?xico y los conflictos urbanos. 1900-1930? (PhD diss., El Colegio de M?xico, 1982), 230. 111 Berra Stoppa, ?La expansi?n de la Ciudad de M?xico,? 231. 112 Carlos Rivas Coronado, Los horrores del carancismo en la ciudad de M?xico (M?xico, DF, 1915), 17. 47 of the middle class had wait in long lines. Bread, tortillas and beans became luxury items, and to obtain them required many hours, sometimes days, of standing in line.113 Jos? Mar?a Benitez remembers how as a boy he was sent in search of bread. He describes one encounter with a bread line 100 meters long at nine o?clock at night as people waited for the bakery to open the next morning. From the line came ?voices, shouts, blasphemies [that] filled the street [and] great columns smelling of sweat, the smell of the multitude, [and] the stink of ragged clothing.?114 Salvador Rivero y Mart?nez also recalls how people waited a night and two days for the arrival of coal they then rationed. The situation was so bad, people simply broke down in tears without explanation.115 Many died of hunger and epidemics. Manuel Serv?n Massieu recounts the stories his mother told of life in Mexico City during the Revolution. In the course of a few months, their comfortable life based on the father?s military salary came to an end. The house became a sad place where their unemployed father, once impeccably dressed, wandered around in disheveled attire with unkempt beard and long hair. He would leave to find provisions, only to have the children watch painfully as he returned empty-handed. The children, particularly the younger ones, became undernourished, weak, and frightened. With his engineering background, the father built jugs of laminated clay that could be heated by electrical current, which the older 113 Ram?n G. Bonfil, ?El asalto de los empe?os,? Mi pueblo durante la revoluci?n, vol. 1 (M?xico, DF: Museo Nacional de Culturas Populares, Direcci?n General de Culturas Populares, Consejo Nacional de Fomento Educativo: Instituto Nacional de Antropolog?a e Historia, 1985), 59, 61. 114 Jos? Mar?a Benitez, Ciudad (M?xico, DF: Librer?a Porr?a, 1942), 26-27. 115 Salvador Rivero y Mart?nez, Entrop?a: Calor humano de una ciudad (M?xico 1920-1930), vol. 1 (M?xico, DF: Librer?a Porr?a, 1982), 11, 14. 48 children sold in the city. Despite their mother?s best efforts, the beans and vegetables were not enough to save two of the children from dying of malnutrition and typhus.116 Other families took handouts, sent their children out to work, and pawned their goods. Jes?s Col?n Casta?eda remembers the Zapatistas gave out bean stew near the San L?zaro train station. His mother lined up for the soup and brought it back to the house despite her sister?s reprimands.117 Jos? Mar?a Benitez was sent by his middle-class family to work as a helper at a family friend?s grocery store.118 For others, pawnshops offered a way to alleviate the condition of extreme poverty.119 When his father fled to El Paso, Texas during the presidency of Victoriano Huerta (1913-1914), the mother of Angel Miguel Tovar sold and pawned household objects to supplement the salary of sixteen pesos a month brought home by her seventeen- year-old daughter who worked in the Secretar?a de Gobernaci?n.120 Poverty also meant improvising basic needs like clothing. The father of Jos? Mar?a Benitez bought boots off a solider for his son. They cut off the top of the boots and filled the ends with bits of rags. Still too large, the boots were very uncomfortable. Benitez recalls that he ?understood that these boots were going to 116 Manuel Serv?n Massieu, ?Las historias de los viejos,? Mi pueblo durante la revoluci?n, vol. 1 (M?xico, DF: Museo Nacional de Culturas Populares, Direcci?n General de Culturas Populares, Consejo Nacional de Fomento Educativo: Instituto Nacional de Antropolog?a e Historia, 1985), 42-45. 117 Jes?s Col?n Casta?eda, ?Viendo llover balas. La Revoluci?n en la capital,? Mi pueblo durante la revoluci?n, vol. 1 (M?xico, DF: Museo Nacional de Culturas Populares, Direcci?n General de Culturas Populares, Consejo Nacional de Fomento Educativo: Instituto Nacional de Antropolog?a e Historia, 1985), 29. 118 Benitez, Ciudad, 139. 119 Ram?n G. Bonfil, ?El asalto de los empe?os,? 59 and 61. 120 Angel Migel Tovar, ?El M?xico que yo viv?,? Mi pueblo durante la revoluci?n, vol. 1 (M?xico, DF: Museo Nacional de Culturas Populares, Direcci?n General de Culturas Populares, Consejo Nacional de Fomento Educativo: Instituto Nacional de Antropolog?a e Historia, 1985), 79. 49 change my habits, my thoughts, and even the rhythm of my walk.?121 At school, he took great care to maintain an unusual and weak posture to avoid stumbling. He worried that his schoolmates would find out that he was using the boots of a soldier.122 Families bought goods on credit and pawned household goods. Ram?n Beteta?s mother got credit from a storekeeper, milk vendor, Spanish baker, and Indian woman who delivered tortillas. At the Monte de Piedad, Mexico City?s public charitable pawnshop, Beteta?s family pawned their household possessions. Pawning was particularly a middle-class activity, since the poorest did not have extra possessions to pawn.123 Beteta?s family had to sell their house, which was a severe blow to his mother, for whom her home represented economic security and social position. The family moved to the town of Azcapotzalco, a much more modest district far from the city center. Their new house had only one storey and lacked basic conveniences. At the nearby school, Beteta was the only child who wore shoes. While his family tried to maintain the appearance of respectability, Beteta makes clear they lived on illusions. Under patched and repatched trousers, he wore no underwear. Within his shoes, carefully polished with blacking cream and spit, his toes protruded from his 121 Benitez, Ciudad, 245, 123 Similarly, during the late colonial era residents from lower and intermediate ranks of the city commonly raised cash by securing loans with possessions like clothing, tools, and jewels as collateral. Marie Francois, ?Cloth and Silver: Pawning and Material Life in Mexico City at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century,? The Americas 60/3 (January 2004): 325-362. See also Cynthia E. Milton, ?Poverty and the Politics of Colonialism: ?Poor Spaniards,? Their Petitions, and the Erosion of Privilege in Late Colonial Quito,? Hispanic American Historical Review 85/4 (November 2005): 595- 626. 50 stockings.124 When his mother?s relatives found out the family?s state, they received a standing invitation to eat supper there every evening.125 For many months, Beteta and his family could count on that one meal a day. He hitched rides on the streetcars from the colonia of Santa Mar?a la Ribera to Azcapotzalco. He dreamed of becoming a lawyer like his father, but worried that his family?s condition would force him to quit school.126 Contemporaries lamented the economic misery of the middle class who, they claimed, suffered worse than others. In the right-leaning newspaper Omega, an article pointed out the differences between the working and middle class. According to the article?s author, the working class suffered less because their customs allowed them to take any road to survive. Many of them, at one time artisans and honorable workers, became criminals. Faultless women fell into prostitution. In contrast, the man of the middle class preferred ?to see his family die of hunger than feed them by robbing and perhaps splattering someone?s blood.? The middle-class woman also preferred misery and death to dishonor.127 Petitioning for Assistance from a Sympathetic Revolutionary Government The eventual winners of the revolutionary struggle pledged promises of relief and compensation for the middle class. On August 30, 1915, when Venustiano Carranza?s Constitutionalist army occupied Mexico City for the fourth and definitive 124 Ram?n Beteta, Jarano, trans. John Upton (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1970), 57. 125 Beteta, Jarano, 13. 126 Beteta, Jarano, 68. 127 ?El hambre en M?xico,? Omega, September 3, 1918, p. 4. 51 time, General Pablo Gonz?lez addressed the difficulties of the middle class in his first decree. He condemned the commercial sector for the high prices of basic necessities. The decree?s second and third point concerned white-collar labor issues, such as the excessive work demanded of employees [empleados] and the unjust firing of honorable and long-time empleados without compensation that hurled families into desperation and misery. The Carrancista general promised Sunday as an obligatory day of rest, an eight-hour work day, and an end to firing without just cause and without notice.128 Earlier on March 31, 1915, Carranza had decided that instead of going after price-gaugers, the administration would buy basic goods (articles de primera necesidad) and sell them at cost.129 Carranza?s administration opened municipal government stores (expendios municipales), which sold price-regulated goods for distressed consumers of the middle class. These shops were a welcome relief during this ?Year of Hunger,? satirized in the year?s two most successful theatre reviews: His Majesty Hunger (Su majestad del hambre) and Country of Cardboard Boxes (El pa?s de los cartones).130 Carranza?s decision to support the middle class appeared to follow a recommendation from U.S. business interests. A 1915 American magazine article entitled ?The Necessity to Build a Middle Class in Mexico? apparently interested the administration, which had the article translated into Spanish.131 The 128 Ram?rez Plancarte, La ciudad de M?xico, 561-562. 129 Art?culos de primera necessdiad, 1915, Centro de Estudios de Hist?ria de M?xico (CONDUMEX), [CEHM] Archivo Carranza, Fondo XXI, carpeta 33, leg. 3587. 130 See Mauricio Magdaleno, Retorica de la Revoluci?n (M?xico, DF: INEHRM, 1978), 20. 131 ?La necesidad de creer una clase media en M?xico,? CEHM, Archivo Carranza, fondo XXI, carpeta 61, leg. 6855, doc. 1 (November 1915). The archival folder cites the article as originating from 52 author urged U.S. dollar diplomacy, in other words, investment in Mexico?s middle class, especially in property owners and small industrialists. Seeking relief from high prices, Mexico City residents scrambled to petition for government-issued cards that entitled them to shop at state-run stores. Letters to the municipal government in 1915 and 1916 petitioning for the cards testified to the difficulties confronting self-identified members of the middle class. The letters arrived in beautiful handwriting, carefully typed, scrawled on postcards, or scribbled on coarse paper. Many writers began by identifying themselves as members of the middle class: ?I belong to the middle class and have few resources to feed my family? began a typical letter. After condemning businessmen who had raised prices out of the reach of the middle class, another petitioner cited the price of coal, which had risen from two pesos to ten pesos, and the price of eggs, which had risen from five centavos to fifteen centavos each.132 Commercial and public employees often wrote as a group on company or government office letterhead. Others had their bosses petition on their behalf. E. Perusquia wrote asking for store cards for two of his employees.133 Medical surgeon Dr. Manuel Ortiz wrote requesting help and complaining about the difficulties he and his colleagues faced as ?poor professional members of the middle class.?134 Many Everybody Magazine, a U.S. periodical published by early mudraking journalist Lincoln Steffens from 1899-1929. I have been unable to locate the original article. All translations are from the Spanish translation. 132 Archivo Hist?rico de la Ciudad de M?xico, Mexico City [AHCM], Ayuntamiento, caja 404, exp. 773 (April 22, 1914). 133 AHCM, Ayuntamiento, Reguladora de Comercio, vol. 3861, exp. 1 (January 15, 1916). 134 AHCM, Ayuntamiento, Reguladora de Comercio, vol. 3860, exp. 6 (October 1, 1915). 53 expressed their gratitude for the expendios, praising the government for helping to alleviate their precarious situation.135 A city newspaper reported on the success of the expendios and announced the opening of four more stores for residents of the colonia of Santa Mar?a la Ribera in October 1915.136 According to one account, 30,000 cards had been issued by January 1916.137 As a possible indication that the food crisis had passed, in 1916, most petitioners who solicited expendio cards did so in order to buy material for clothing, like calico and cashmere, as well as stockings and shoes.138 Agustina Caudillo de Vel?zquez wrote that the high prices of clothing adversely affected the middle class.139 Viriginia J. de S?nchez, a resident of the Santa Mar?a la Ribera neighborhood, lamented that high prices meant she was unable to present herself in public due to the scarcity of clothing.140 Expendio cards, as employees in one government office explained, would allow them to present themselves in the office in decent attire.141 The equation of the lack of proper clothing with suffering may seem 135 AHCM, Ayuntamiento, Reguladora de Comercio, vol. 3856, exp. 19 (January 12, 1916). Cited letter written by the Empleados de la Oficina de la Direccion General de la Ensa?ana T?cnica. For more letters, see AHCM, Ayuntamiento, Comisi?n art?culos de primera necesidad, vol. 523; AHCM, Art?culos de Primera Necesidad, Empleado, Junta Reguladora de Comercio, vols. 1013- 1015; AHCM, Solicitudes y tarjetas, Comisi?n de empleados p?blicos, Reguladora de Comercio, vol. 3856; AHCM, Solicitudes y tarjetas, Comisi?n de particulares, Reguladora de Comercio, vols. 3860 ? 3861. 136 ?Habr? Cuatro Nuevos Expendios para la Clase Media,? El Mexicano, October 27, 1915, p. 3. 137 AHCM, Ayuntamiento, Reguladora de Comercio, vol. 3861, exp. 7 (January 25, 1916). 138 Cashmere, a frequent request among petitioners, was a typical fabric used in middle-class attire. See Jes?s Romero Flores, La revoluci?n como nosotros la vimos (M?xico, DF: M?xico Instituto Nacional de Estudios Hist?ricos de la Revoluci?n Mexicana, 1963), 15. 139 AHCM, Ayuntamiento, Reguladora de Comercio, vol. 3861, exp. 7 (January 25, 1916). 140 AHCM, Ayuntamiento, Reguladora de Comercio, vol. 3860, exp. 4 (March 10, 1916). 141 AHCM, Ayuntamiento, Reguladora de Comercio, vol. 3856, exp. 1 (January 18, 1916). 54 exaggerated, but for members of the middle class the inability to appear decently in public signaled the loss of social and class distinction. Petitioners took great pains to explain why they deserved relief. They pointed to rapid inflation and shortages of basic goods. They consciously marked themselves off from the lower classes, whose poverty reformers often blamed on laziness, drunkenness, and a propensity to crime.142 In presenting their neediness, petitioners acknowledged a vertical relationship between themselves and the government administrator or political official they petitioned. At the same time, they asserted a horizontal affiliation that proved their worthiness and eligibility. The latter claim depended on a shared language between writer and reader whereby the meaning behind ?decent? and ?middle class? was understood. The letter writers assumed that the reader, presumably a government administrator or political official, also belonged to the middle class and understood the precarious nature of respectability. Middle-class Protests and Neighborhood Action in the 1920s On June 1, 1917 a popularly elected municipal government (ayuntamiento) was installed for the first time in Mexico City. The new arrangement of municipal power allowed direct representation from the eight districts of the city. For some members of the middle class, particularly small businessmen and professionals, the Revolution brought the long desired right to take part in municipal politics. Francisco Madero had gained middle-class liberal support when he campaigned against Porfirio 142 Cynthia Milton also finds this for the late colonial period. See Milton, ?Poverty and the Politics of Colonialism,? 603, 605. 55 D?az on the issue of municipal reorganization and direct representation. In 1914, various revolutionary factions issued decrees establishing the free municipality (municipio libre) as the basic territorial and political unit of the country. The delivered promise of representative government led to tremendous political competition for municipal control in Mexico City. Between 1918 and 1923, two parties, the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (PLC) and the Partido Nacional Cooperatista (PNC), fought for command of the ayuntamiento, creating intense internal political struggle and frequent disorder.143 The Revolution also empowered and radicalized the working- class movement. Labor unions fought for demands by taking to the street and protesting. In 1921, 310 strikes were recorded. Over the next three years the number dropped, but still remained high. In 1922, there were nearly 200 and at the end of President Obreg?n?s term in 1924 the city faced nearly 125 strikes.144 Political struggles over the allocation of urban services became key to the redefinition of social and political order.145 Decisions about where in the city to direct much-needed services, like lighting, paving, and housing had important social and political implications in this volatile climate, as postrevolutionary administrations 143 On the history of the ayuntamiento, see Berra Stoppa, ?La expansi?n de la Ciudad de M?xico,? esp. Chapter Two. See also Jorge H. Jim?nez Mu?oz, La traza del poder: historia de la pol?tica y los negocios urbanos en el Distrito Federal: de sus or?genes a la desaparici?n del Ayuntamiento, 1824- 1928 (M?xico, DF: Dedalo, Codex, 1993). 144 Berra Stoppa, ?La expansi?n de la Ciudad de M?xico,? 482. 145 A number of scholars have made this argument. See Georg Leidenberger, ?Las huelgas tranviarias como ruptures del ordern urbano. Ciduad de M?xico, de 1911 a 1925,? Formas de Descontento y Movimientos Sociales, Siglos XIX y XX, eds. Jos? Ronz?n y Carmen Valdez (M?xico DF: UAM, 2005), 139-166. Diane Davis argues that the government in the 1920s made special overtures to those employed within or in need of urban services. See Diane E. Davis, Urban Leviathan: Mexico City in the Twentieth Century (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1994). 56 attempted to consolidate control over Mexico?s most important political and commercial center.146 The government?s efforts to revive the local economy and restore urban infrastructure directly benefited the middle classes, especially small shopkeepers and employees who relied on prosperity and services for their livelihood. The collaboration between national political leaders and local populations around urban development was important for purposes of restoring urban services and consolidating political power vis-a-vis the middle class.147 Filled with politics and ideology, the city?s space was never merely an innocent backdrop. Acting on political constituents? complaints was not an easy task.148 Throughout the 1920s, municipal-level political struggles, large deficits, shortage of funds, and disorderly government offices hindered progress. Deep financial debts at the federal and local level hampered projects to rebuild and increase urban services to a populace whose numbers and needs overwhelmed the existing infrastructure. Unprecedented numbers of migrants flooded the city to escape the destruction of the Revolution. Among them were self-identified members of the middle class from provincial towns. In fact, some members of the Consultative Council (Consejo Consultivo), the municipality?s political body after 1929, acknowledged that they 146 In the 1920s, urbanization was a top priority for municipal and federal politicians who linked the nation?s progress to the state of its cities, particularly Mexico City. For discussion on the modern city and its proponents, see Bolet?n Municipal, 1921, AHCM. 147 See Diane Davis, Urban Leviathan, 20-101. 148 Lack of progress was also blamed on employee corruption. On corruption among public employees, see ?Expulsion de ?Coyotes? en las Oficinas Municipales,? Bolet?n Municipal, March 31, 1926: 1-2, AHCM; ?La Moralizaci?n de los Empleados Municipales,? Bolet?n Municipal, October 31, 1925, 3, AHCM; ?La Moralidad Debe Ser la Norma del Empleado,? Bolet?n Municipal, February 28, 1927: 37, AHCM. 57 were not Mexico City natives. These members spoke of working to improve a city in which not they but their children were born.149 Massive migration into the city produced unplanned growth, overcrowded neighborhoods, housing shortages, escalation of rents, land speculation, and an increased concentration of urban property in fewer and fewer hands. Rent prices became one of the principal issues that mobilized a large number of lower- and middle-class people, since a vast majority of the middle class rented rather than owned property.150 In 1921, only four to six percent of the population owned property in the city, a number mirrored in middle-class colonias like Santa Mar?a la Ribera.151 The high number of renters attested to the political failure of the first post- revolutionary administrations, whose promises of housing were often more rhetoric than reality. Even the projects to construct colonias destined for employees and workers with the goal of making them property owners did not meet expectations. One problem was the soaring price of land. For example, after three years, land prices in the government-created neighborhood of Pervavillo jumped to six pesos per square meter, four times its initial value.152 149 Actas y Versiones del Consejo Consultivo, January 29 ? April 24, 1929, 8, AHCM. 150 Monthly rents increased from an average of 6.50 pesos to 14.00 pesos between 1916 and 1920. See Berra Stoppa, ?La expansi?n de la Ciudad de M?xico,? 456. 151 The number of property owners in District VII, to which Santa Mar?a belonged, was 3.26% in 1921. Santa Mar?a had one of the lowest rates of property owners, followed only by District I with 3.09%. The average rate in the city was 3.5 - 3.7%, with the highest in District VIII at 7.02%. Berra Stoppa, 385. For rent figures and homeownership in the city, see John Lear, Workers, Neighbors, and Citizens: The Revolution in Mexico City (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 481-482. 152 Massive migration into the city also resulted in neighborhood overcrowding, leading longtime residents to complain of ?paracaidismo? (parachuting), whereby migrants illegally occupied empty property lots. See Berra Stoppa, ?La expansi?n de la Ciudad de M?xico,? 149. For housing problems in the 1930s, see Patrice Elizabeth Olsen, ?Un hogar para la revoluci?n: patrones, y significado del desarrollo residencial,? Miradas recurrentes, vol. 1, La ciudad de M?xico en los siglos XIX y XX, ed. 58 Rent increases provoked much vocal protest among the city?s high number of renters. As early as 1916, a group of mainly middle-class small businessmen formed the Renters? League of the Federal District (Liga de Inquilinos del Distrito Federal) to demand reasonable rents. Rents between 1916 and 1920 reveal the rising burden on city?s residents. In 1916, the average rent was 6.50 pesos. Two years later, the rent jumped to 8.6 pesos. The average rent reached 14 pesos in 1920.153 By 1922, newspaper accounts mentioned working-class renters joining the movement. Nevertheless, newspaper descriptions continued to point out that the majority of the protesters were renters who lived in ?two or three-room houses for the middle class,? rather than working-class tenement housing. Berra Stoppa describes the renters? movement as ?interclass,? led by elements of the radicalized petite bourgeoisie.154 Marching in the streets and sending petitions to various levels of government, the movement demonstrated how the middle class mobilized within the notion of a new moral economy in which they appealed to the revolutionary state for help to meet their basic needs.155 Mar?a del Carmen Collado (M?xico, DF: UAM; Instituto Mora, 2004), 132-165. 153 Berra Stoppa, ?La expansi?n de la Ciudad de M?xico,? 456. 154 Berra Stoppa, ?La expansi?n de la Ciudad de M?xico,? 610. 155 For comments about the middle-class nature of the movement, see El Democrata, March 12, 1922, cited in Berra Stoppa 504, ft. 590. Leadership of the league was taken over in 1922 by the Mexican Communist Party created that same year. The change in leadership led to the expulsion and resignation of many of the league?s middle-class members. Yet poorer residents of even middle-class neighborhoods, including Santa Mar?a la Ribera, took part in rent strikes in which they refused to pay rent and hung black and red banners from their houses. See Berra Stoppa, ?La expansi?n de la Ciudad de M?xico,? chapters 12, 13, and 14. See also Esther Martina V?zquez Ram?rez, Organizaci?n y resistencia popular en la ciudad de M?xico durante el crisis de 1929-1932 (M?xico, DF: INEHR, 1998), 86-93. 59 Sectors of the middle class united into the Mexican Renters? Cooperative (Cooperative Inquilinaria Mexicana), created in 1930 with the main objective of defending the middle class from the economic crisis of 1929. The majority of the cooperative?s members were small businessmen and artisans accompanied by a smaller number of bureaucrats. Their most important objective was to achieve conciliation between renters and property owners.156 The cooperative and representatives in Congress asserted that the giving of housing to the working class and the middle class was part of the same revolutionary justice that had parceled out land for the peasant (campesino). Representative Angel Ladr?n de Guevara clearly stated the need to ?recover the rights of the urban sectors like the workers and middle class, who now represented a social force key to the strengthening of the State.?157 Transportation issues also mobilized working members of the middle class who depended on the tramway system to commute to work. The nearly yearly tram strikes, first in 1911 and then in 1921, 1922, 1923, and 1925,brought the city to a near halt. In 1922, the municipal government suggested closing two-thirds of schools when teachers could not reach their workplaces. The next year, one journalist described how the city slowed down with shops, theatres, factories, and schools functioning at half speed. It left middle-class employees stranded in the streets of the 156 This group differed from other popular organizations in its respect for the interests of property owners as well as its declaration to be an apolitical group. The middle-class organization may have been inspired in reaction to the anarchist working-class renters? movement. V?zquez Ram?rez, Organizaci?n y resistencia popular, 90. 157 V?zquez Ram?rez, Organizaci?n y resistencia popular, 91. 60 city center unable to get home.158 Many users of the tram services supported the strikers and projected their grievances toward the foreign owners of the privately- owned tramway company. According to Georg Leidenberger, their support reflected less their labor solidarity and more their dissatisfaction with the tram services, prices, access, schedules, safety, and behavior within the trams. For the first time, self- identified members of the middle class formed part of a new public opinion and reflected in the press.159 Middle-class consumers appeared in these conflicts not only as victims but also as new actors in the public sphere. Middle-class men and women actively participated in the tumultuous politics of the 1920s, a period complicated by the emergence of new social groups like union members and migrants, who demanded the fulfillment of revolutionary promises and competed for government resources. While studies have emphasized the emergence of new actors representing the working or popular classes in negotiation with the state, members of the middle class also formed part of this expanding public sphere. Disruption of services, rising rents, and recurring strikes threatened the precarious economic position of the middle class and rallied its members to add their voice to an enlarged sphere of public opinion and popular politics. 158 ?El servicio de las tranv?as se paraliz? ayer a las 24,? El Excelsior, January 21, 1923: 1a, p. 1, 10; ?Tranv?as quieren que los caminones suspenden el tr?fico inmediamente,? El Excelsior, January 22, 1923: 1a, p. 1, 8. 159 For a detailed study of the strike, see Georg Leidenberger, ?Habermas en el Z?calo: La Tranformaci?n de la Esfera P?blica y la Pol?tica del transporte p?blico en la Ciudad de M?xico, 1900- 1947,? Actores, espacios y debates en la historia de la esfera p?blica en la ciudad de M?xico, eds. Cristina Sacrist?n and Pablo Piccato (M?xico, DF: INH-UNAM; Instituto Mora, 2006), 179-197. 61 Political Organizing Among the Middle Class in the 1920s Federal politics marked the political landscape of Mexico City. As the capital?s residents took an active part in the presidential campaigns of the 1920s, political parties emerged with the term middle class as part of their name for the first time in Mexican history. The use of the word middle class by politicians and self- appointed middle-class spokespersons provides insight into contemporary understandings of who and what constituted Mexico?s middle class. Though short- lived, these parties? very existence demonstrates a growing political voice of individuals who defined themselves as middle class. Such mobilization contrasts with the charges of passivity and apathy that contemporary politicians and intellectuals often leveled at the middle class. On January 10, 1921, a petitioner from the ?Protective Society of the Middle Class? (Sociedad de Protectora de la Clase Media) asked the Obreg?n administration (1920-1924) for help in acquiring a large building. The author, A.I. Puga, described members of the middle class as the ?heroes of pain and bitterness? whose sufferings had been forgotten. Puga made clear that he was not asking for a handout: ?It is not public charity on which we want to live,? he wrote. While Puga did not make clear the reason for the building, his intention seemed to have been to form a mutual aid society.160 In 1922, the Pro Middle Class Resistance League (Liga de Resistencia en Pro de la Clase Media) asked for an audience with President Obreg?n. After the request was denied and almost a year later, another letter reminded the president that the 160 Sociedad Protectora de la Clase Media, 1921, Archivo General de la Naci?n, Mexico City [AGN], Caja 262, OC 805-S-1. 62 Resistance League ?will play an important role in the next presidential elections.? The writer made clear his credentials in asking for support, declaring that he had been a long-time revolutionary since the time of President Francisco Madero.161 The reason why Obreg?n denied or ignored the League?s request for support remains unclear. According to Salvador Rivero y Mart?nez, the Obreg?n administration repeatedly supported the middle class in its efforts to organize in defense of its rights.162 An article in the conservative newspaper Omega breathed a sigh of relief at the establishment of a middle-class political party in 1923. The article?s author asked, ?Are we going to see who belongs and who does not belong to the middle class?? He then described members of his class as ?all who take life on the easy side and never expose [themselves] to the rigors of those who struggle and sweat mightily to earn their bread.? On the other hand, the middle class also did not work itself to death to become millionaires. Members of the middle class, he concluded, were those who ?make social calls, play the piano in family tertulias, and attend semi-literary reunions.?163 The middle-class political parties that surfaced leading up to the election of 1924 largely supported the candidacy of Plutarco Calles, who had spoken out strongly during his campaign in support of the middle class.164 Small parties at this time 161 AGN, OC 711-C-5, May 12, 1922 and March 9, 1923. The author acknowledged that it was the third time he had written to President Obreg?n, but he was desperate to get the president?s personal attention. 162 See Salvador Rivero y Mart?nez, Entrop?a: Calor humano de una ciudad (M?xico 1920-1930), vol. 1 (M?xico, DF: Librer?a Porr?a, 1982), 259 (August 1922). 163 ?El Partido de la Clase Media,? Omega, September 28, 1923, p. 1, 3. 164 Salvador Rivero y Mart?nez writes that ?Calles declared in favor of the middle class and proletariat, those that are the backbone of Mexican society? in May 1924. See Rivero y Mart?nez, 422. For speeches about the middle class given by Calles, while President of Mexico, see ?Las clases 63 included the Revolutionary Constitutionalist Party (Revolutionary Middle Class) (Partido Revolucionario Constitutionalista (Clase Media Revolucionaria)),165 Confederation of Parties of the Middle Class and the Worker (Confederaci?n de Partidos de las Clase Media y Obrera),166 and the Confederation of Unions of the Middle Class (Confederaci?n de Sindicatos de la Clase Media).167 The latter party, represented by Alejandro Sodi, Salvador Mendoza, and Alfredo de Urrieta, ?pursued the true and effective betterment of the Mexican Middle Classes.?168 These leaders proposed the creation of a center that would support Calles? candidacy.169 The Sub- Secretary of the Calles presidential campaign congratulated the Confederation of Unions of the Middle Class, remarking that the Revolutionary Constitutionalist Party showed that Calles had popularity not only within the proletarian classes, but also within the ?thinking class? (clase pensantes).170 This political party belonged to the trabajadoras son el nervio de la naci?n? and ?La clase media depone su abulia,? Plutarco El?as Calles, Pensamiento politico y social. Antolog?a (1913-1936), ed. Carlos Mac?as (Mexico, DF: Fondo de Cultura Econ?mica, 1988). 165 On the declaration of their support for Calles, see Fideicomiso Archivos Plutarco El?as Calles y Fernando Torreblanca, Mexico City [FAPECFT], Archivo Plutarco El?as Calles, Fondo Plutarco El?as Calles [FEC], fondo 03, series 0402, g: 87, exp. 5, inv. 1222, leg. 2 (2/2). Cardo Gonz?lez Montero was the president of the Revolutionary Constitutionalist Party. For a list of the Executive Committee members, see PEC, exp. 65, inv. 5476, leg. 1 (November 13, 1923). 166 On their declaration of their support for Calles, see FAPECFT, FEC, fondo 03, series 0402, g: 87, exp. 5, inv. 1222, leg. ? (October 31, 1923). Alejandro Sodi was the president of Confederation Parties of the Middle Class and the Worker. 167 Ante-proyecto de Confederaci?n de Sindicatos de la Clase Media, Fideicomiso Archivos Plutarco El?as Calles y Fernando Torreblanca, Mexico City [FAPECFT], Archivo Fernando Torreblanca, Fondo Plutarco El?as Calles [FPEC], exp. 87, inv. 3461, leg. 1, f: 2-6 (1923). 168 Confederaci?n de Sindicatos de la Clase Media, AGN, O-C 725-C-52 (1924). 169 Ante-proyecto por Ruben Marti. FAPECFT, FPEC, exp. 87, inv. 3461, leg. 1, f: 2-6 ( October 31, 1923). 170 FAPECFT, FEC, f: 03, s: 0406, g: 88, e: 7, f: 1287, leg. 1 (1924) f: 18 (April 28, 1924). According to a letter written in 1924 by E. Ogarrio to President Obregon, Alejandro Sodi had faced charges and 64 Alliance of Revolutionary Parties (Alianza de Partidos Revolucionarios), which included the Labor Party (Partido Laborista Mexicano) and National Agrarian Party (Partido Nacional Agrarista).171 In 1924, the Alliance held power in Mexico City?s municipal government.172 Middle-class women also organized to support the candidacy of Calles. Under the leadership of Elena Iriarte y Drusina, the Feminist Association of the Middle Class ?Leona Vicario? (Agrupaci?n Feminista de la Clase Media ?Leona Vicario?) was a small organization of twenty-one with an office in the neighborhood of Santa Mar?a la Ribera.173 The association?s leader was married to C. Ernesto Iriarte y Drusina, a member of the National Progressive Association (Agrupaci?n Progresista Nacional) and honorary president of Revolutionary Association of the Middle Class ?Free Chauffeurs? (Agrupaci?n Revolucionario de la Clase Media ?Chofers Libres?). Iriarte y Drusina was raised on a ranch by a father who was a lawyer who served the local poor and nearby Indians. She credited her father for ?inculcating la Patria in her soul [?.] because in those indigenous I saw portraits of pain and bitterness of the people.?174 Iriarte y Drusina had been an acquaintance, if not friend, of Calles since jail for falsifying money and being a swindler in 1915. Proof, he wrote, was in a 1916 publication of ?Ilustraci?n Semanal? in which Sodi appears in jail. See AGN, O-C 307-S-33 (October 23, 1924). 171 Other parties belonging to the alliance included the Liberal Constitionalist Party (Partido Liberal Constitucionalist), National Railroad Workers Party (Partido Nacional Ferrocarrilero), Civic Progressive Party (Partido Civico Progresista), and the Radical Worker Party (Partido Radical Obrero). See Bolet?n Municipal, January 29, 1924. 172 Berra Stoppa, ?La expansi?n de la Ciudad de M?xico,? 53. 173 FAPECFT, FEC, fondo 03, series 0402, g: 87, exp. 5, inv. 1222, leg. 2 (2/2) f: 96 (1924). The office was likely in the home of Iriarte y Drusina located on Magnolia Street in the colonia of Santa Mar?a la Ribera. Another founding member was Sara N. Blake. 174 Speech given in the State of Mexico, April 27, 1924, FAPECFT, FEC, fondo 03, series 0402, g: 87, exp. 5, inv. 1222, leg. 2 (2/2) f: 96 (1924). 65 the time she lived in Hermosillo, where her husband had worked as an army paymaster.175 According to Iriarte y Drusina, the candidacy of Calles allowed women of the middle class to support an honorable candidate. In an interview published in the newspaper El Dem?crata in May 1924, Iriarte y Drusina discussed how she wanted to awaken the feminine conscience through protests, women?s conferences, pamphlets, movies, and visits to the houses and offices where women worked.176 In a speech given in Tacubaya, just outside of Mexico City, she proclaimed women?s right to be heard and to vote. Iriarte y Drusina also spoke out in favor of labor laws and met with members of the Regional Confederation of the Mexican Worker (Confederaci?n Regional Obrera Mexicana, or CROM), the Socialist Union of Students and Workers (Union Socialista de Estudiantes y Obreros), and the Mexican Labor Party (Partido Laborista Mexicano).177 The public activities of the Feminist Association of the Middle Class included outright campaigning for Calles. During the Spring Festival in May 1924, the women took part in the parade of automobiles. They rode in two cars owned by Iriarte y Drusina?s husband.178 Adorned with visible propaganda of the candidate Calles, the 175 El Dem?crata, May 9, 1924, FAPECFT, FEC, fondo 03, series 0402, g: 87, exp. 5, inv. 1222, leg. 2 (2/2) f: 96. For a letter to Calles expressing her support, see FAPECFT, FEC, fondo 03, series 0402, g: 87, exp. 5, inv. 1222, leg. 2 (2/2), f: 99-100 (May 11, 1924). 176 El Dem?crata, May 9, 1924, FAPECFT, FEC, fondo 03, series 0402, g: 87, exp. 5, inv. 1222, leg. 2 (2/2) f: 96. 177 FAPECFT, FEC, fondo 03, series 0402, g: 87, exp. 5, inv. 1222, leg. 2 (2/2), f: 101-103, f: 104 and f: 106. 178 Berra Stoppa, ?La expansi?n de la Ciudad de M?xico,? 328-329. A car for rent (coche de alquile) cost 1.50 pesos for short distances and up to 3-5 pesos for longer distances. In comparison, buses 66 cars transported the women dressed in china poblana costumes driven by men dressed as charros. They distributed propaganda to 3,000 men ?receiving applause and acclamations of the multitude.? In the afternoon, they gave out 4,000 more leaflets. They happily reported to the director of the pro-Calles campaign that they had not encountered any trouble or hostility among the popular masses.179 Overtly named middle-class political parties reappeared during the 1928 federal election. The Anti-Reelection Party of the Middle Class ? Pro-Serrano (Partido Antireelectionista de Clase Media ? Pro-Serrano) emerged to support the candidacy of General Francisco R. Serrano, a military general who ran in opposition to the reelection of President ?lvaro Obreg?n.180 Meanwhile, the National Progressive Association of the Middle Class (Agrupaci?n Progresista Nacional de la Clase Media) campaigned for municipal government seats.181 Despite the appearance of middle-class political parties at the federal and local levels, sectors of the middle class felt increasingly marginalized. The decision to disband the municipality of Mexico City in 1929 at first seemed to worsen the situation. However, the new political system put in its place promised more representation for the middle class. The creation of an advisory council called the Consultative Council (Consejo Consultivo) consisted of handpicked representatives from large and small business charged 0.12 centavos and electric tranvias 0.10 centavos. Berra Stoppa, ?La expansi?n de la Ciudad de M?xico,? 345. 179 FAPECFT, FEC, fondo 03, series 0402, g: 87, exp. 5, inv. 1222, leg. 2 (2/2) (1924). 180 Letter to Gral Francisco R. Serrrano signed by President Jes?s E. V?ldez and Secretary Lic. A. Pati?o Mart?nez, ?Partido Antireelectionista de Clase Media.? Pro-Serrano, FAPECFT, Archivo Fernando Torreblanca, Fondo Fernando Torreblanca [FFT], f: 13, s: 010212, g: 44, exp. 137, i: 993 (September 22, 1927). 181 Bolet?n Municipal, May 31, 1926, AHCM. 67 and industry, professionals, tenants, property holders, public and private employees, workers, mothers? associations, and peasants. This conscious effort to make overtures to the middle class resulted in the privileged industrial labor movement having to participate side by side with wide variety of other social groups, including shopkeepers, factory owners, professionals, and property owners.182 The Cristero Rebellion in Mexico City Aggressive anti-clerical campaigns begun under President Plutarco El?as Calles (1924-1928) generated a vociferous Roman Catholic response and spurred much of the middle-class Catholic laity, particularly women, to organize and defend their faith. Thus, another voice was added to the strident declarations of striking renters, political campaigners, and working-class marchers that made up the vigorous post-revolutionary public sphere. The confrontation between the state and Roman Catholics commenced in 1925 when Calles began to implement the anticlerical articles of the Constitution of 1917, which legally entrenched a secular state and attacked the Roman Catholic Church?s juridical status. The revolutionary constitution of 1917 restricted clergy rights and the Church?s role in primary education. The passage of the ?Calles Law? in June 1926 further legalized the ongoing seizures of Church property, the closure of religious orders, the banning of religious education, and the deportation of clergy. In protest, the Catholic hierarchy closed churches and 182 The 1928 Ley Org?nica del Distrito y de los Territorios Federales gave the Consejo Consultivo juridical status. The body of politically-appointed representatives had the official purpose of assisting Mexico City?s major in governing the capital. The group had no legislative power. The representatives were handpicked in conjunction with the mayor, who was also presidentially appointed. Diane Davis, Urban Leviathan, 69, 71. 68 campesinos took up arms initiating the three-long year violent conflict known as the Cristero Rebellion (1926-1929).183 In Mexico City, the National Defense League for Religious Freedom (Liga Nacional Defensora de la Libertad Religiosa, or LNDLR, or La Liga) formed in March 1925 to fight the anticlerical measures of the Calles administration. The Liga organized protests supporting freedom of education and of the rights of Roman Catholic citizens. A heterogeneous coalition, the Liga was composed of the Knights of Columbus, the Catholic Ladies? Association, the Congregation of Mary, the Nocturnal Adoration Society, Catholic trade unions, and the Catholic Young Men?s Association. The cadres of the Liga consisted of middle-class lawyers, engineers, doctors, civil servants, and men of the Church. Except for one businessman, lawyers made up the principal leadership. Most of the leaders, including president Rafael Ceniceros y Villareal and vice-president Palomar y Vizcarra, came from Mexico?s traditionally strong Catholic provinces although they had lived in Mexico City for many years. In the past, many of the Liga?s key figures had supported the National Catholic Party (Partido Nacional Cat?lica) and President Francisco Madero. In the 1920s, the predominantly youthful membership of men and women was between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five years old.184 Women also played a large role in the Liga mobilizations 183 On the history of the Cristeros, see Jean A. Meyer, The Cristero Rebellion: The Mexican People Between Church and State, 1926-1929, trans. Richard Southern (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976). 184 Liga Nacional Defensora de la Libertad Religiosa [LNDR], Bolet?n 26, April 4, 1927 in AGN, IPS, vol. 229, exp. 7, fs: 3-4. 69 The Calles administration kept a close eye on the Liga through a steady stream of reports from police officers and government spies. An early report from 1925 contained a history of the Liga and background information on its most prominent members.185 Undercover government agents infiltrated Liga meetings and those of other Catholic organizations like the Knights of Columbus, the Catholic Ladies? Association, and Catholic Young Men?s Association. For example, one agent attended the bi-weekly meetings of the Liga gatherings held at the Cine Trian?n, out of which he produced a summary of topics discussed along with a list of names of people in attendance.186 Liga members coordinated an intense campaign of fundraising, protest, civil disobedience, and legal action. Members collected money, medicine, food, and weapons for armed resistance in the countryside.187 Stamps with pro-Catholic and anti-Calles messages, as well as ?pro-patria? certificates, likely served as forms of fundraising.188 Other activities included highly visible protests in which women often played a leading role. At one such protest, groups from various neighborhoods assembled to write messages on green, white, and red paper that they tied to similarly 185 Informe de Agente 18, AGN, IPS, vol. 228, exp. 33, fs: 20-24 (April 7, 1925). 186 AGN, IPS, vol. 228, exp. 33, fs: 83. On the meeting at Cine Trian?n, see AGN, IPS, vol. 228, exp. 33, fs: 61. 187 While the capital did not see the type of bloody conflict that occurred elsewhere, Mexico City played a key role in efforts to raise funds and smuggle ammunition. On January 7, 1928, Mar?a Goyaz established one of the first women?s brigades in Mexico City in order to buy and smuggle easily- obtainable ammunition. Jean Meyer describes the Liga?s members as recruited from the middle and lower classes. Mar?a Goyaz, for example, was a junior employee. See Jean A. Meyer, The Cristero Rebellion: The Mexican People Between Church and State, 1926-1929, trans. Richard Southern (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 132, 136. 188 On the stamps, see Centro de Estudios de Hist?ria de M?xico (CONDUMEX), Mexico City [CEHM], Cristeros. Fondo CLXXXII, Los impresos, C3 L188-L189-L190. For the ?pro-patria? certificates, see CEHM, Cristeros, Fondo CLXXXII, Los impresos, C11 L1077. 70 colored balloons. On December 4, 1926, each neighborhood leader released the balloons at the appointed hour of noon. Three hundred balloons filled the sky over Mexico City with the colors of the Mexican flag. The messages invited residents of the city to join the Liga in denouncing President Calles.189 In July 1926, the Liga called on the citizens of Mexico to boycott tax payments and luxury spending in order to paralyze the social and economic life of the country.190 Women took an active role in distributing the Liga?s boycott propaganda. Most likely, women?s association with consumerism made them a special target of the campaign. Spy reports written for President Calles and Secretary of Economy Luis Napole?n Morones detailed the Liga?s inner workings. The Catholic Ladies? Association named commissions of young women to boycott commercial houses.191 Leaflets called on Catholics to abstain from attending the theatre or cinema, using a car, traveling in first class, visiting the barber or hairdresser, or buying sweets, fruit, soft drinks, whims, and cigarettes. They were also urged to refrain from buying flowers, books, music, and dresses.192 In an effort to demonstrate the boycott?s success, the leaflet cited the economic difficulties of five cinemas. Ticket sales at the Majestic, which normally took in 800 189 Mar?a de los Angeles Lim?n y Lascur?in, interview with author, Cuernavaca, Mexico, April 17, 2007. According to participant Cristina Limon Lascur?in, the commotion caused by the balloons brought Calles out onto the balcony of the presidential palace. He worried that the protest was the work of his political rival ?lvaro Obreg?n. Mar?a Cristina Lim?n y Lascur?in, ?Una remembranza de tiempos inolvidables? (1998, unpublished manuscript in author?s possession), 13-14. 190 Circular No. 2-A (July 14, 1926), Archivo Hist?rico del Arzobispado de M?xico [AHAM] Base de Jos? Mora y del R?o, 1909-1928, caja 31, exp. 31. 191 Informes para Luis N. Morones. FAPECFT, FEC, f: 3, serie 08, exp. 2, inv. 1392, leg. 1 (1/1) (August 30, 1926). 192 Impulse a los Cobardes. AGN, IPS, vol. 228, exp. 33, fs: 122-123. 71 pesos daily, plummeted to 189 pesos in the first week of August. Other cinemas like the Parisian went form 800 pesos to 129 pesos before finally closing.193 For the rest of the year 1926, the Liga published statistics that they claimed proved the campaign?s success in crippling businesses.194 That same year, the city reported the closure of two cinemas in colonias Roma and Juarez, although twenty-six continued to function.195 While the Liga did not meet its objective of paralyzing the Mexican economy, its efforts forged a united urban Catholic front that aided the Cristero cause. Catholics and non-Catholics alike remarked on the lack of faithful compliance with the boycott by individuals of the middle- and upper classes. According to Rivero y Mart?nez, many stores wrapped purchases in newspaper for Catholics who broke the boycott.196 The conservative newspaper El Hombre libre blamed the failure of the boycott on egoism and a lack of solidarity, especially among empleados who would not scale back on their favorite diversions, or wear a used suit, or change their dining habits.197 Others felt that the boycott only hurt small businesses and the poorer classes.198 193 LNDR pamphlet, AGN, IPS, vol. 228, exp. 33, fs: 227-228 (November 7, 1926). 194 LNDLR newsletter, AGN, IPS. vol. 228, exp. 33, fs: 227-228 (August 14, 1926). The newsletter claims that five cinemas suffered declining revenue. See also AHAM, Base Pascual D?az Barreto, caja 41, exp. 2 (August 14, 1926). 195 Memorias del Ayuntamineto, 1926, AHCM. 196 Rivero y Mart?nez, Entrop?a, vol. 2, 82 (December 1926). 197 ?Algo m?s sobre el boicot en 1926,? El Hombre Libre, February 1, 1935, 1. 198 Such sentiment was expressed in the one-step foxtrot called ?El Boycot? by Ricardo Garc?a de Arellano: ?The boycotters are walking / very sadly and injurious / because without motive or cause / falls the ?SANCTION? / The musician, the unemployed / and the poor small businessman / carry the face of contrition / the lack of ?NUTRITION.?? AGN, Prop. Art y Lit. c. 465, exp. 3407, f: 2 (1926). 72 Many Catholics involved in Liga activities faced police scrutiny. Some ended up in jail. The participation of large numbers of women in public protests tested notions of female honor, particularly the middle-class idea of women?s place in the private sphere. In February 1926, the Mexico City police violently repressed a group of demonstrating Catholic women. In response, the Central Committee of the Damas Cat?licas urged Mexicans to tie black ribbons on the doors of their homes or work places.199 Active Catholic women feared government spies, who reported on ?suspicious? activities and neighbors, who collaborated with government agents. The bulk of the illegal activities of Catholic women involved efforts to maintain religious services and religious schooling. Their defense of the Faith meant real experiences with imprisonment, often with their young daughters in tow.200 The Liga?s boycott may have exasperated the Mexican government, but not enough for it to make concessions. Apparently, former President Obreg?n said cynically that far from prejudicing the economy, the boycott favorably lowered inflationary conditions.201 The economic situation of 1926 was already dire due to bad harvests, a fall in petroleum production, a slump in the price of henequen, and the fall in the price of silver on the world market. Wealthy Catholics, fearing the impact of an economic slowdown on their own businesses, succeeded in convincing the Vatican and certain leaders of the Liga to abandon the boycott. Manuel G?mez 199 ?Un Liston Negro,? Archivo Hist?rico de la Uni?n Femenina Cat?lica Mexicana [AHUFCM], caja 18, exp. 38 (February 25, 1926). 200 Amalia L?pez Reyes, ?Problema religioso en M?xico y su repercussion en la colonia Santa Mar?a la Ribera,? (paper presented at the Third Community Colloquim entitled ?Una mirada a la Santa Mar?a la Ribera,? Mexico City, November 26-27, 2003, recorded on cassette tape and held at the Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City). 201 Rivero y Mart?nez, Entrop?a, vol. 2, 82 (December 1926). 73 Mor?n, future founder of the National Action Party (Partido Acci?n Nacional, or PAN) and head of the State Bank (Banco Central) founded by President Calles, led the opposition to civic or armed resistance.202 In 1926, the Calles administration also expedited new laws elaborated by Secretary of Education Jos? Manuel Puig Casauranc that further limited the action of private and religious schools. Under the threat of law, these schools were forced to secularize and to incorporate themselves into the Secretary of Education. Authorities disallowed school names that indicated religious identity, closed school chapels, and stripped the classrooms of all religious paraphernalia. School directors could not be religious ministers of any kind and had to subject themselves to official vigilance.203 Many religious schools closed out of refusal to incorporate into the state system.204 National Parents? Union (Uni?n Nacional de Padres de Familia, or UNPF), an organization created in 1917 with a self-defined middle-class membership, responded. Although officially secular, the National Parents? Union was closely united with the Roman Catholic Church and coordinated parental action in all schools, but principally in private ones.205 The Union proclaimed the right of parents by natural law to educate their children in conformity with their own beliefs.206 By 202 See Jean A. Meyer, The Cristero Rebellion: The Mexican People Between Church and State, 1926- 1929, trans. Richard Southern (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 80. 203 On the history of religious and public education in this period, see Patience A. Schell, Church and State Education in Revolutionary Mexico City (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2003). 204 In 1932, private secondary schools were obligated to adjust to the same terms as the primary schools. See Soledad Loaeza, Clases medias y pol?tica en M?xico (M?xico, DF: El Colegio de M?xico, 1999), 118. 205 Valentina Torres Septi?n, La educaci?n privada en M?xico, 1903-1976 (M?xico, DF: El Colegio de M?xico; Universidad Iberoamericana, 2004), 50, 94. 206 Torres Septi?n, La educaci?n privada en M?xico, 94, 107. 74 1929, the Union felt itself triumphant after a presidential decree recognized the UNPF parents as part of a newly created Council of Primary Education for the Federal District (Consejo de Educaci?n Primaria para el Distrito Federal).207 Conclusion Protests by Catholics over the right to practice their faith and receive religious education launched them into the public sphere as they participated in civic debates about what values would inform a modern Mexico.208 They entered a public sphere already galvanized by protests over the dearth of urban services and housing, and rise in crime. After suffering during the Revolution, middle-class residents took an active role in the politics of urban reconstruction. Early political decrees and government programs like the expendios municipales highlight the importance the new post- revolutionary governments placed on the middle class for state consolidation. This post-revolutionary government attention is not surprising, considering that the revolutionary leadership was itself middle class in origin. Accordingly, the administrations of Obreg?n and Calles took part in a larger transnational discussion that considered the middle class to be a crucial sector for national development strategies. The middle class struggled to reposition itself within the newly expanded post-revolutionary public sphere that incorporated the traditionally marginalized 207 Loaeza, Clases medias y pol?tica en M?xico, 103. 208 Stephen J.C. Andes, ?Catholic Social Movements, the Vatican, and the Political Sphere: Mexico City and Santiago de Chile, 1915-1925? (paper presented at the Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies, Flagstaff, Arizona, April 9-12, 2008). 75 popular groups (el pueblo). Letters from Mexico City residents to post-revolutionary administrations reveal a sector self-identified as middle class partly through its ability to conspicuously display class standing through ?decent? clothing. Petitioners appealing for government help did not consider such requests threatening to their class position. Indeed, they continued an old tradition of subjects appealing to the ruler for aid to secure their caste/class distinction. At the same time, the Revolution brought promises by military leaders and guaranteed basic rights under the Constitution of 1917. In this new moral economy, the middle class joined other Mexicans in demanding affordable rents, housing, and urban services. In the volatile climate of the 1920s, the middle class entered the public sphere in diverse political and tactical ways. The middle class never acted as a unified front. They represented a range of political positions from supporting Calles during the 1924 election to joining the Vasconcelos anti-reelectionist campaign against Calles? appointed candidate Pascual Ortiz Rubio in 1929. Some members of the middle class joined militant street protests and unions associated with working-class movements. Others eschewed such tactics and chose to petition for urban services like lighting and paving. Such calls for material help surfaced at the neighborhood level. Neighborhoods also initiated highly organized responses to Calles? anti-clerical policies. In the colonia Santa Mar?a la Ribera, residents worked to improve and defend their neighborhood and in the process articulated a middle-class identity. 76 Chapter 3: The Neighborhood of Santa Mar?a la Ribera Introduction One of Mexico City?s first suburban neighborhoods (colonias) to develop in the mid- nineteenth century, Santa Mar?a de la Ribera attracted middle-class merchants, artisans, professionals, and office workers. Using the neighborhood of Santa Mar?a as a case study, the chapter shows a middle class oriented around neighborhood associations, parks, schools, churches, and cultural centers that shaped the ?pedestrian rhetoric? of the neighborhood.209 Social geographers like David Harvey and Edward Soja remind us to see space as an important category of analysis. They draw on the work of Walter Benjamin, who understood the nineteenth-century arcade as not a ?grid of reference or location? but ?a way of life, a metaphoric allusion to a form of sensibility.? Benjamin?s understanding of space as a ?way of seeing? allows us to consider how space both produced and expressed identity.210 The neighborhood served as a space to organize beautification projects, patriotic festivals, religious festivities, and social activism. Residents? activity belies common claims of the middle class as apathetic and Mexican civic culture as weak. Numerous religious organizations and ardent Roman Catholic residents in the neighborhood joined the resistance to the state?s forced secularization policies of the 1920s and 1930s. Other organizations arranged civic events and patriotic celebrations. 209 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 107. 210 Michael Keith and Steve Pile, ?Introduction,? in Michael Keith and Steve Pile, eds. Place and the Politics of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1993), 8. See David Harvey, Consciousness and the Urban Experience (London: Basil Blackwell, 1985); Edward W. Soja, Post-Modern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (New York: Verso, 1989). 77 Residents united in efforts to beautify and defend their neighborhood. Both as liberals and Catholics, the middle class actively participated in neighborhood life. The Neighborhood of Santa Mar?a la Ribera, 1860-1915 In 1859, two brothers of the Flores family sought permission to establish a pretty village on the western outskirts of the city center where residents could benefit from the capital?s conveniences while at the same time enjoy the ?open space and good air of the countryside.? In their petition to the municipality, they described a neighborhood with regular blocks of spacious streets, a park (alameda), a market, a church and a school. They wanted to sell lots of land at a moderate price so that people of little means could acquire property while still being able to work in the city.211 The area was conveniently located between the main thoroughfare of the Avenida de San Cosme and the Buenavista railway station.212 The existence of 81 wells by 1882 was a wonderful asset in a city with frequent water shortages. Despite its auspicious location, the population of the colonia developed slowly. Only after 1880 did the colonia begin to expand with the arrival of running water and installation of some lighting. City expansion projects in the 1870s brought a tramway service to the neighborhood. The opening of small industries also stimulated growth. This meant that the colonia became more socially diverse as workers lived and worked in the new factories. A census from 1882 lists a 211 AHCM, Ayuntamiento, Colonias, vol. 519, exp. 2 (1859). See also AHCM, Ayuntamiento, Colonias, vol. 519, exp. 1 (1858) and exp. 14 (1891). 212 See Mar?a Dolores Morales, ?La expansion de la ciudad de M?xico en el siglo XIX, El caso de los fraccionamientos,? in Ciudad de M?xico: Ensayo de construcci?n de una historia, ed. Moreno Toscano (M?xico: Instituto Nacional de Antropolog?a e Historia, 1978), 146. See also Richard Morse, ed., The Urban Development of Latin America, 1750-1920 (Stanford, CA: Latin American Center, 1971). 78 brickmaking factory, the Chamb?n silk factory that produced shawls, La Malinche and Lo Cubano chocolate factories, a sweets factory, and the Pasamaner?a Francesa, a lacemaking and ribbonmaking factory.213 Between 1882 and 1890, the population of the colonia nearly doubled from 3,372 to 6,000.214 The middle-class population of clerks and bureaucrats became the main targets of the real estate market. By the turn-of-the century, residents represented a range of occupations, including small industry and property owners, businessmen, professionals, military and religious men, artisans, and bricklayers. They escaped the city center where much of the middle class continued to live. In 1903, the municipal government in discussing the city?s housing remarked that the middle class suffered in dense and expensive housing in the center. In particular, private and public employees lacked ?comfortable and hygienic living quarters.? But the government acknowledged that the emigration of many families towards the colonias had led ?the middle class ? to construct housing, generally of one floor but spacious, in the colonias of Guerrero and Santa Mar?a.?215 Commercial development of outlying neighborhoods specifically for families of government employees, artisans, and lower-end professionals led to the construction of new styles of residential single-dwelling buildings. Long and narrow building lots, prevalent in colonias like Santa Mar?a, led to the construction of homes 213 Berta Tello Pe?n, Santa Mar?a la Ribera (M?xico, DF: Editorial Cl?o, 1998), 43-45. 214 Tello Pe?n, Santa Mar?a la Ribera, 43. 215 ?La extension y la densidad de la poblaci?n,? Bolet?n Municipal, October 13, 1903, 1-2, AHCM. The colonia Guerrero constructed on the other side of the Buenavista train station to the east of Santa Mar?a first attracted largely a working-class population, but quickly also became home to clerks and bureaucrats. 79 that consisted of a row of rooms coming off a long narrow corridor. Other layouts required family members to move within the house through doors connecting one room to the next, starting with the living room facing the street, followed by bedrooms and a bathroom. At the back of the home, the kitchen often opened onto a small, enclosed patio and small garden, or faced out to a narrow patio that ran alongside the corridor of the rooms.216 Some wealthier families built two-story homes with rooms encircling a large patio of stone columns and arcades. Interiors included neo-colonial decorative motifs with lobed arches, tiled facades, and complex moldings. The buildings? street facades were lavishly decorated with brick, channeled stucco, or even masonry facing, and elaborate windows and balustrades indicating the economic status of its owners.217 In the early years of the neighborhood?s development, single-family houses (unifamiliares) dominated. Over time, the neighborhood also boasted multifamily buildings (multifamiliares) for those families unable to afford the former but nevertheless desirous of modern housing outside the traditional city center. Slightly above the grade of tenement housing (vecindades), the multifamily buildings consisted of two-storey, simple stucco-covered buildings. They housed several families in apartments of two or more rooms and often accommodated shops and businesses on the ground floor. More financially secure individuals or families lived 216 See Carlos Obreg?n Santacilia, 50 a?os de arquitectura mexicana, 1900-1950 (M?xico, DF: Patria, 1952). The descriptions also come from my visits to Santa Mar?a la Ribera between January-April 2007. 217 See Vicente Mart?n Hern?ndez, Arquitectura dom?stica de la ciudad de M?xico, 1890-1925 (M?xico, DF: UMAM, 1981). See also Rosalva Loreto L?pez, Casas, viviendas y hogares en la historia de M?xico (M?xico, DF: Colegio de M?xico, 2001). 80 in the rooms at that front and back of the buildings, which were often larger and more expensive to rent. Housing architecture and design reveal how Mexico City?s middle class conceived of public and private space. The decline in the presence of workshops in homes indicates that many artisans no longer lived and worked in the same place, dividing the private world of the family and public world of work. Most of these homes functioned separate from economic production, meaning that professional, white-collar workers, prosperous artisans, and shopkeepers left home each day for an office, store, or workshop. In Mexico City, as elsewhere, a growing number of homes that contained rooms for specific functions, such as bathrooms, bedrooms, and a sitting or living room.218 In addition, a general trend toward a small number of bedrooms indicates families with fewer children and/or fewer extended family members living with them. Many new families were migrants to Mexico City in search of work, leaving extended family behind in provincial towns.219 Interior furnishings and decorations revealed a middle-class understanding of the home as a place of rest and comfort as well as emotional investment.220 218 On middle-class homes in nineteenth-century Spain, see Jesus Cruz, ?Building Liberal Identities in 19th Century Madrid: The Role of Middle Class Material Culture,? The Americas 60/3 (January 2004): 391-410. On the relation between domestic architecture and the middle class in the United States, see Katherine C. Grier, Culture and Comfort: Parlor Making and Middle-Class Identity, 1850-1930 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988). 219 On changes to private houses that reflected changes in the family, see Diana Hernando, ?Casa y Familia: Spatial Biographies in Nineteenth-Century Buenos Aires,? cited in Jean Franco, ?Women, Fashion, and the Moralists in Early-Nineteenth-Century Mexico? in Critical Passions: Selected Essays, eds. Mary Louise Pratt and Kathleen Newman (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), 461-475. 220 In his study of domestic life in Victorian England, John Tosh argues that the home shifted from a ?pattern of residence or web of obligations [to] a profound attachment? and became a ?privileged site of subjectivity and fantasy.? John Tosh, A Man's Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991), 4. 81 Throughout the nineteenth century, female family members adorned homes with handiwork like crocheted pieces bedecked with ribbon, lace, and embroidered flowers.221 Tables and shelves hosted glass candy bowls, porcelain, and earthenware figurines. Entranceways, corridors, balconies, and patios never lacked potted plants, earthenware pots, and birdcages.222 The enthusiasm for birds and plants may have hearkened from the provincial origins of many middle-class families. By the end of the century, photo albums served as sentimental reminders of relatives left behind. Portraiture paintings and photographs of family members hung alongside religious calendars as well as lithographs of Mexican geographical and archeological sites.223 By the 1890s, Santa Mar?a was a vibrant community revolving around schools, churches, markets, theaters, cinemas, museums, and the main square called the alameda. The neighborhood boasted a high density of public, private, and religious schools. Institutions of learning reflected the importance residents placed on schooling and erudition. Many families chose to send their children to the neighborhood?s private schools. Santa Mar?a also had a number of institutions of higher learning, including the public Superior Normal School (Escuela Normal Superior), the School of Higher Education (Escuela de Altos Estudios) and the National School of Music (Escuela Nacional de M?sica).224 In 1896, the Jesuit-run 221 See Emma Cos?o Villegas, ?La Rep?blica restaurada. La vida social,? vol. 3, ed. 1, in Historia Moderna de M?xico, ed. Daniel Cos?o Villegas (M?xico, DF: Editorial Hermes, 1957), 463. 222 See Emma Cos?o Villegas, ?La Rep?blica restaurada, 462. 223 Cristina Barros and Marco Buenrostro, eds. Vida cotidiana: Cuidad de M?xico, 1850-1910 (M?xico, DF: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y Artes, 1996), 65, 69. 224 The Normal School (Escuela Normal Superior) later became a part of the Faculty of Arts and Letters (Facultad de Filosof?a y Letra) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad 82 Scientific Institute of Mexico (Instituto Cient?fico de M?xico) opened in the Mascarones building located in southern corner of the neighborhood. The school offered a solid foundation in religion and morality as well as modern, scientific instruction that followed the curriculum of the National Preparatory School (Escuela Nacional Preparatoria).225 Other institutions of knowledge reflected the residents? emphasis on edification. The colonia boasted two museums: the Museum of the Institute of Geology (Museo del Instituto de Geolog?a) constructed for the 1910 centennial and the Museum of Natural History, known as the Chopo Museum (El Museo del Chopo). The latter was nicknamed the Crystal Palace (El Palacio de Cristal) because of its innovative architecture that combined iron, steel, and glass. In the 1910 centennial celebrations, the building housed the Japanese art and industry exhibit. It became the National Museum of Natural History in 1913.226 The ubiquitous presence of educational institutions in Santa Mar?a complemented a long list of well-known professionals and writers who lived in the neighborhood. Described in one memoir as the ?cradle of distinguished people,? the neighborhood included among its residents notable lawyers, engineers, doctors, generals, critics and historians like Jes?s Galindo y Villa. Many writers also lived at some point in Santa Mar?a, including Federico Nacional Aut?nomo de M?xico, or UNAM) and moved to the University City (Ciudad Universitaria) in 1954. The music school remained in the neighborhood until 1979. 225 See Valentina Torres Septi?n, La educaci?n privada en M?xico, 1903-1976 (M?xico, DF: El Colegio de M?xico, 1997). 226 The National Museum of Natural History moved to another part of the city in the 1950s, at which point the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) restored the building. The building now holds temporary expositions of science and arts, including music, theater, dance, and experimental theater. 83 Gamboa, Mariano Azuela, Carlos Gonz?lez Pe?a, Jaime Torres Bodet, and Carlos Pereyra.227 Shouts from the public markets and singing voices from church pews made up the everyday sounds of life in the neighborhood. Housewives and servants made daily trips north to the Dalia Market or south to San Cosme Market, an iron structure built in the Porfiriato that served the residents of both Santa Mar?a and San Rafael.228 Two parishes, El Esp?ritu Santo on the west side and La Sagrada Familia on the east side, offered daily masses to the faithful. In the evenings and on weekends, young men strolled around the main square (alameda) hoping to catch the eye of the famously beautiful women of Santa Mar?a whose movements vigilant family members and scrupulous brothers supervised.229 From the architecturally Moorish-inspired pavilion at the center of the park, musicians often filled the air with orchestral music.230 Entrepreneurs and organizations frequently requested city licenses to sell beer, soft drinks, sweets, and ice cream, as well as host children?s dances in the park.231 227 Salvador Rivero y Mart?nez, Entrop?a: Calor humano de una ciudad (M?xico, 1920-1930) vol. 1 (M?xico, DF: Porrua, 1982), 79. In 1915, Mariano Azuela wrote the most famous novel of the Mexican Revolution, The Underdogs (Los de Abajo), as well as several novels about Mexico?s petite bourgeoisie. His son, Arturo Azuela, has written a series of novels dedicated to the neighborhood of Santa Mar?a: Tama?o del infierno (1974), La casa de las mil v?rgenes (1983), Los r?os de la memoria (Invenciones en Santa Mar?a la Ribera) (2003), and Alameda de Santa Mar?a (2003). 228 A third market opened on the west side in 1925. Salvador Rivero y Mart?nez, Entrop?a: Calor humano de una ciudad (M?xico, 1920-1930) vol. 1 (M?xico, DF: Porrua, 1982), 77. 229 Salvador Rivero y Mart?nez, Entrop?a: Calor humano de una ciudad (M?xico, 1920-1930), vol. 1 (M?xico, DF: Porrua, 1982), 80. 230 Architect Jos? Ram?n Ibarrola constructed the Moorish pavilion for the New Orleans International Exposition in 1884. Afterwards, the pavilion was transported to Mexico City?s central park (alameda) where it served as the headquarters of the state lottery (Loter?a para la Beneficencia P?blica). For the 1910 centennial, the pavilion was restored and placed in the main park (alameda) of Santa Mar?a la Ribera. 231 AHCM, Ayuntamiento, Diversiones P?blicos, vol. 813, exp. 1768 (March 21, 1918). 84 Like other families of Mexico City, those of Santa Mar?a took excursions to Dolores Cemetery, where they enjoyed a view of the city, or to the capital?s main square, where balloon vendors? shrill whistles hoped to catch the attention of children and parents. Ram?n Beteta recounts how on Sundays his father took the children on long walks ending at the capital?s main square, where they sat on a bench and listened to a military band. Deeply patriotic, the elder Beteta was fascinated by the charro costume that came to signify Mexican identity. Much to Beteta?s chagrin, his father insisted that his son don the charro suit during their Sunday walks. He taught his children to not feel ?ashamed of wearing the typical sombrero of our Motherland.?232 Nights and weekends, residents of Santa Mar?a sought out the neighborhood?s varied entertainment and amusements. Theaters like the Bernardo Garcia Theater, just off the main square, presented plays and vaudeville shows. In 1912, the theater owner petitioned for a license to show movies.233 A year later, he requested a license to give free dance classes.234 In response to the latter request, the city commissioner wrote that he did not see a problem with granting the license since the colonia?s best families would not ?scandalously stir up trouble.?235 In April 1912, the G?mez Rivera Salon situated on Carpio Street advertised a ?Great Gala Function.? The show boasted duets by Flor de Lis and Conchita Campos and performances by Professor Picam. A three-round Jiu-Jitsu fight featured the 232 Beteta, Jarano, 13, 16. 233 AHCM, vol. 1392, exp. 748 (February 15, 1912). 234 AHCM, vol. 1399, exp. 1289 (April 14, 1913). 235 AHCM, vol. 1399, exp. 1289 (April 17, 1913). 85 ?colossal mulatto? Mr. Johnson. Audiences could watch art films and plays like ?Some Country Days in Chapultepec? and ?Halley?s Comet.? Tickets cost twelve to thirty centavos with half-price admission for children.236 The local theater competed with the hot air balloons, pantomimes, and wrestling matches of the circuses and street theaters (carpas) like Circo Trevi?o and Feria de Sevilla that performed on the edges of the colonia.237 The theaters also competed with the popular new moving pictures that appeared at the end of the nineteenth century. The neighborhood had three movie houses by 1910.238 Community Organizing in Porfirian Santa Mar?a la Ribera, 1890-1910 Historians of working-class Mexico City have argued that types of residences and neighborhoods helped foster a class identity. John Lear argues that the creation of distinct working-class and popular neighborhoods, where residents lived, worked, consumed, and socialized in late nineteenth-century Mexico City, set the stage for growing assertiveness and class-recognition among workers and the urban poor.239 Similarly, V.M. Hern?ndez asserts that poor and working-class Mexicans began to elaborate a new sense of community in tenement houses. Yet he denies this process of 236 AHCM, vol. 1392, exp. 799 (April 25, 1912). 237 Permission para verifar ascensciones de globo. ACHM, Diversiones P?blicos, vol. 1393, exp. 887, (1911-1912). See also ACHM, Diversiones P?blicos, vol. 1398, exp. 1196 (1912-1913) and AHCM, Diversiones P?blicos, vol. 813, exp. 1792 (July 17, 1919). For the licensing of a ?Greek-Roman wrestling match,? see ACHM, Diversiones P?blicos, vol. 1398, exp. 1200 (1912-1913). 238 See ACHM, Diversiones P?blicos, vol. 1383, exp. 96, (1906) and vol. 1387, exp. 370 (1910-1911); ACHM, Diversiones P?blicos, vol. 1391, exp. 702 (1911-1912). Petitions for movie house business licenses occurred as early as 1899. AHCM, Diversiones P?blicos, vol. 805, exp. 922 (1899). 239 John Lear, Workers, Neighbors, and Citizens: The Revolution in Mexico City (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 485-486. 86 class identification and community spirit to the middle class because its members? housing and neighborhoods fostered a greater sense of independence.240 While middle-class homes promoted more individuality and autonomy in comparison to life in tenement houses, middle-class residents certainly cultivated a sense of class belonging and pride through participation in their neighborhood?s civic and religious life. Neighborhood organizations, like the spatial parameters of the colonia itself, provided a means to articulate class identity and a sense of belonging. While civic organizations were not the only factor responsible for class identity formation, associational life played an important role.241 Neighborhood organizations sought to obtain and improve urban services for purposes of safety, health, and beautification.. Residents participated in sacred and secular realms, often intertwining their civic and religious lives. One such individual, Reverend Jos? Mar?a Troncoso, exemplified the range of neighborhood participation in Santa Mar?a as a man both of the cloth and of science, and as model of civic virtue. The Private Committee for the Improvement of the Colonia of Santa Mar?a la Ribera took charge of improving community aesthetics and hygiene. Efforts included upgrading lighting and laying grass in the main square (alameda).242 Fear of 240 V.M Hern?ndez, Arquitectura dom?stica de la Ciudad de M?xico, 1890-1925 (M?xico, DF: UNAM, 1981), 143. 241 In his study of middle-class formation in nineteenth-century Leeds, R.J. Morris claims that voluntary organizations essentially created the British middle-class identity. R.J. Morris, Class, Sect, and Party: The Making of the British Middle Class: Leeds, 1820-1850 (New York: St. Martin?s Press, 1990). 242 Junta Privada de Mejoras en la Colonia de Sta. Mar?a de la Ribera. AHCM, Ayuntamiento, Asociasiones, vol. 388 (Feb, 4, 1902). On the laying of grass, see ACHM, Gobierno del Distrito: festividades, vol. 1609, exp. 122 (1906). 87 epidemics and disease provoked demands for improvements in drainage and for the paving of streets. In 1900, district VII, to which Santa Mar?a belonged, benefited from one of the lowest mortality rates in the city. The area was listed only after district VIII, which included the upper-class neighborhoods of San Rafael, Ju?rez, Roma, and Condesa.243 But residents worried about the poor sanitation and drainage problems in a neighborhood that lay to the north of Santa Mar?a. The industrial neighborhood of El Chopo needed vast improvements.244 In 1911 reports described El Chopo as largely underdeveloped and emitting harmful waste into nearby lots and ditches.245 Neighborhood committees were also organized around civic holidays and patriotic festivities. The member-elected local Patriotic Committee (Junta Patri?tica) coordinated two days of festivities for Mexico?s Independence Day. In 1905, the committee spent over 800 pesos on the celebration. Military bands, fireworks, balloons, and an all-night dance in the San Cosme Market entertained the celebrants. Other events included acrobatics, a traditional flower war, horse and bicycle racing, climbing a greased pole with ropes (dos cuca?as con ropas), toy car racing.246 Two years later, the committee noted similar activities, as well as the reading of the 243 District VII registered 32 per 1,000 and district VIII recorded 30 per 1,000. The highest mortality rate in Mexico City was in district II with 77 per 1,000. See ?La mortalidad comprada de los cuarteles de la capital,? Bolet?n Municipal, March 6, 1903, AHCM. 244 ?La mortalidad comprada de los cuarteles de la capital,? Bolet?n Municipal, March 6, 1903, AHCM. 245 Mois?s Gonz?lez Navarro, Poblaci?n y sociedad en M?xico, 1900-1970, vol. 1 (M?xico: UNAM, 1974), 143, 145-6. 246 Festividades de 15 and 16 septiembre. AHCM, vol. 1608, exp. 104 (September 5, 1905). For the festivities in 1900, see ACHM, vol. 1612, exp. 274 (1900). 88 Proclamation of Independence by prominent residents and the traditional shout of Independence. Other civic holidays, like Cinco de Mayo, featured circuses, climbing a pole to obtain prizes (palo esebado), a raffle, and hot air balloons.247 For devout Catholics, religious activities took place alongside secular celebrations.248 Many of the neighborhood?s inhabitants served as members of a wide variety of vigils, penances, and associations that organized activities for the observance of saints? days, fasts, and various religious festivals. The faithful upheld long traditions of pageants like the Christmas posadas. They attended La Sagrada Familia and El Esp?ritu Santo churches for regular services, catechism classes, confirmations, baptisms, weddings, and funerals. Some belonged as lay people to the Order of the Josefino Missionaries (Congregaci?n de Misioneros Josefinos), whose headquarters were located in Santa Mar?a. The day of commemoration for the order?s patron saint, Saint Joseph, brought residents into the street, parading statues, holding candles, and singing hymns. Others donated time and money to city-wide religious organizations, including the Catholic Ladies? Association (Asociaci?n de Damas Cat?licas), the Knights of Columbus (Caballeros de C?lon), the Catholic Young Men?s Association, (Associaci?n Cat?lica de Juventud Masculina), and the Catholic Young Women?s Association (Associaci?n Cat?lica de Juventud Feminina), which drew from members from the upper and middle classes.249 247 AHCM, vol. 1060, exp. 90 (April 19, 1918). 248 While this chapter deals specifically with Roman Catholics, residents undoubtedly also belonged to Protestant denominations and Masonic lodges. On Protestantism in Mexico, see Jean Pierre Basti?n, Los disidentes. Sociedades protestantes y revoluci?n en M?xico, 1872-1911 (M?xico, DF: Colegio de M?xico, 1989). 249 Silvia Arrom discusses how the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul drew from not only a restricted elite but also from middle and lower-middle classes, including employees, clerks, and occasionally 89 Activity in Santa Mar?a at the end of the nineteenth came out of a long history of lay religious participation in Mexico. A renewed effort to involve the church laity in social issues came in 1891 when Pope Leo XIII issued the papal encyclical, Rerum Novarum. The pope called on church members to organize in order to counter the rising tide of socialism and liberalism.250 Social Catholicism marked an explicit engagement with the political, economic, and social issues associated with conflicts between labor and capital. The papal address called on members around the world to involve themselves in social matters. In 1893, the Roman Catholic newspaper The Friend of Truth (El amigo de la verdad) urged the creation of Catholic worker circles (c?rculos de obreros cat?licas).251 The groups aimed to teach workers how to save, develop a fraternal spirit, and establish a vigorous work ethic.252 Jos? Mar?a Troncoso, a priest in Santa Mar?a, played an instrumental role in establishing Mexico City?s worker circles. Through his work, the neighborhood became one of the main centers for Catholic labor organization. The circles aimed at helping artisans and factory workers who artisans. Silvia M. Arrom, ?Mexican Laywomen Spearhead a Catholic Revival: The Ladies of Charity, 1863-1910,? in Religious Culture in Modern Mexico, ed. Martin A. Nesvig (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), 50-77. 250 Social Catholicism called for measures similar to those taken by Catholics who had sought to reestablish the centrality of religion in public life after mid nineteenth-century liberals pushed for a secularized society. Manuel Ceballos Ram?rez, Historia de Rerum Novarum en M?xico (1867-1931) (M?xico, DF: Instituto Mexicano de Doctrina Social Cristiana, 2004). 251 At the National Confederation of Catholic Workers? Circles in 1913, the main goals of the Catholic workers? circles included the establishment of schools, mutual aid societies, and savings accounts. Letter from Bishop of Zamora to Father Troncoso. March 22, 1913. Archivo General de los Misioneros Josefinos, Mexico City [AGMJ], SG02-05, exp. C?rcular Obrero (1913). 252 Villaneda, 344. Catholics also organized professional unions and argued for the need for social reforms directly related to the middle class. Alfredo Mendez Medina, La Cuesti?n Social en M?xico (Mexico, DF: 1913), 11, 34. A document from 1914 lists professional unions under the category of workers? circles. See AGMJ, SG02-05, exp. C?rcular Obreros (February 10, 1914). 90 inhabited and worked in the colonia. In 1908, Troncoso established a Catholic Worker Union to coordinate the worker circles.253 In an assembly held in December 1911, 46 circles were represented with a total of 12,300 members.254 The union?s motto ?Some for Others and God for All? (?Unos por Otros y Dios por Todos?) was displayed on cards given out as keepsakes that featured an image of a fair-skinned Saint Joseph holding a white child.255 With its base in an annex of the El Esp?ritu Santo church, the union was known as the Center for the Apostleship of the Cross (Centro del Apostolado de la Cruz). The center?s main hall held Sunday School classes for workers. Other activities for workers took place around the neighborhood. For example, on Flores Street, monthly recreation events were held in the evening. A building on Santa Mar?a la Ribera Street housed a workers? school that offered classes nightly and a savings bank Financial support for the Catholic Worker Circles came from benefit concerts attended by Santa Mar?a?s well-to-do residents. A monthly fundraising event featured the music of Bizet, Verdi, Saint Sa?ns, and Donizetti for the price of sixty-five centavos a ticket. Supporters dedicated the money to the establishment of a cinema and a salon for the workers.256 The Catholic Ladies? Association raised funds to throw ?moralizing and instructive fiestas? for Catholic workers. On one occasion, more than 253 Manuel Ceballos Ram?rez, ?Las organizaciones laborales cat?licas a finales del siglo XIX,? in Estado, Iglesia y Sociedad en M?xico. Siglo XIX, eds. ?lvaro Matute, Evelia Trejo, Brian Connaughton (M?xico, DF: UNAM, 1995). 254 Jos? Miguel Romero de Sol?s, El Aguij?n del esp?ritu. Historia contempor?nea de la Iglesia en M?xico, 1892-1992 (M?xico, DF: IMDOSOC, 2006), 142. The membership of the Catholic Workers? Circles in Mexico City consisted mainly of artisans. See Romero de Sol?s, 140. 255 See AGMJ, SG02-05, exp. C?rcular Obreros (May 8, 1910). 256 AHCM, Diversiones P?blicos, vol. 1392, exp. 749 (March 1, 1912). 91 3,000 male workers and 260 female workers of the El Esp?ritu Santo parish attended a day-long festivity. The female organizers hired a military band to provide music and bequeathed a complete ball court. Local factories donated beer, pastries, confetti, and cookies while the workers brought balloons, fireworks, firecrackers, and flowers. "The betterment of the working class based in Catholic doctrine can save the current conflict between capital and labor,? reported a city newspaper the following day.257 The Catholic Church played a significant role in Mexico?s processes of modernization. The Church utilized public rituals, festivals, print media, and notions of thrift, recreation and the purifying power of work to cultivate devout workers and foster a culture of capitalism.258 The inclusion of the Catholic Church and religion in our understandings of Mexico?s modernity challenges the pervasive dichotomy that has set faith and tradition against reason and modernity.259 Residents? activism also disputes the accepted notion that Latin America has a weak ?civic culture.? The religious organizations serve as an example of participatory civil society, democratic practices, and a culture of volunteering.260 Moreover, devout Catholics did not bifurcate their religious and liberal identities. They took part in both kinds of organizations and celebrations. 257 AHCM, Diversiones P?blicos, vol. 1392, exp. 749 (1911-1912). 258 Manuel Ceballos Ram?rez, ?Las organizaciones laborales cat?licas a finales del siglo XIX.? Mark Overmyer-Vel?zquez, Visions of the Emerald City: Modernity, Tradition, and the Formation of Porfirian Oaxaca, Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006). 259 See Pamela Voekel, Bethany Moreton, and Michael Jo, ?Vaya con Dios: Religion and the Transnational History of the Americas,? History Compass 5/5 (July 2007): 1604-1639. See also Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 15. 260 Arrom makes this argument for lay activity in the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul?s in the second half of nineteenth century. Arrom, ?Mexican Laywomen Spearhead a Catholic Revival: The Ladies of Charity, 1863-1910.? 92 Father Troncoso provides a good example of an individual who saw his work of building a Christian social order as a civic and religious duty.261 He had arrived in Santa Mar?a as a newly ordained priest and member of the Missionaries of Saint Joseph. He served as chaplain to the order?s high school (Colegio Preparatoria de Se?or San Jos?), as well as general secretary of the religious order. In 1897, he became director of the order?s magazine El Propagador de la Devoci?n a Sr. San Jos?. In 1910, Rome appointed him general procurer and chaplain to Mexico City?s Knights of Columbus. As a resident of the colonia, he took leadership roles in neighborhood civic organizations. In 1909, he served as treasurer to the material improvement committee and treasurer to Police District Seven, to which Santa Mar?a belonged. He was also active in liberal intellectual circles. He belonged to the Geography and Statistics Society and to the Scientific Alliance, whose honorable members included D?az?s finance minister Jos? Ives Limantour, education minister Justo Sierra, and vice- presidential running mate Ram?n Corral. The society?s headquarters were located at the House of the Mascarones, a former Jesuit building in the southeast corner of the Santa Mar?a neighborhood. 261 According to Enrique Galindo, Troncoso was born March 14, 1865 in Mexico City to a middle- class family (familia bien). He attended the Colegio Cat?lico del Centro determined to study medicine. After the death of his mother, he changed his mind and entered seminary at the age of 18. Shortly after, he joined the relatively new order of the Missionaries of Saint Joseph. See Enrique Galindo, m.j., El P. Jos? Ma. Troncoso, m.j. (M?xico, DF: Escuela Tipogr?fica Josefina, 1979). 93 After the Destruction: Appealing to the Revolutionary State By the end of the destructive years of the Revolution many of the wealthier families had moved out of Santa Mar?a to the grander houses along the Paseo de la Reforma. Public and private employees, shopkeepers, and artisans continued to make the neighborhood their home. In his recollections of growing up in Mexico City, Luis R?os Monta?ez remembers his father?s workshop located on Cipr?s Street in Santa Mar?a. His father constructed wagons, popularly called de mulitas because they were pulled by mules.262 The workshop occupied approximately five to six thousand square meters and included a carpentry and painting shop as well as an iron and bronze foundry that constructed the metal pieces for the bearings, brackets, and brakes.263 R?os Monta?ez?s father worked alongside other artisans, including dyers, carpenters, and shoemakers housed mainly along Santa Mar?a la Ribera Street, which served as the main thoroughfare into the neighborhood.264 The colonia also became home to more factory workers. By the 1920s, small industries in the colonia included Alfa (sweets), La Castellan (pastries), Sidral Mundet (beverage), Phillips Company (furniture), Mendozabal and Imperial (matchsticks), Royalcross Jab?n "La Luz" (perfume), La Suiza (chemicals), and La Palma y Cosmopolita (pharmaceuticals). 262 The mulita was a type of vehicle sought after by hacienda owners, who counted on small wagons to transport their goods to major railway lines. 263 Luis R?os Monta?ez, ?De Tlalayote a M?xico,? Mi pueblo durante la revoluci?n, vol. 1 ((M?xico, DF: Museo Nacional de Culturas Populares, Direcci?n General de Culturas Populares, Consejo Nacional de Fomento Educativo: Instituto Nacional de Antropolog?a e Historia, 1985), 91-92. 264 Tello Pe?n, 44-45. 94 New residents rented out rooms or floors in the haciendas and stately homes that had once been retreats for the wealthy.265 Teresa Mar? Careaga Soriano remembers that the country houses, constructed in the eighteenth and turn-of-the nineteenth century, still existed in the 1920s along the Puente de Alvarado, one of the main streets bordering the neighborhood of Santa Mar?a. One of these homes with large patio garden of a kiosk, fountain, rustic benches, and flowerpots housed her uncle Lio, his wife, and three children. They rented the bottom floor and another family of five rented the top floor. At the back of the home, in an apartment adapted from the old servants? quarters, resided a German family. A house that had once been occupied by one family now housed three.266 In his memories of the home of a classmate from what he describes as a poor middle-class family, Salvador Rivero y Mart?nez recounts a clean and well-cared for house filled with many rustic family portraits, a color lithograph of the Sacred Heart, and a small plaster bust of the late President Porfirio D?az.267 Hired help assisted with the cooking, washing, and cleaning. Large number of servants in the capital according to census figures indicates that many middle-class homes employed at least one domestic helper.268 265 See Vicente Mart?n Hern?ndez, Arquitectura dom?stica de la Ciudad de M?xico, 1890-1925 (M?xico, DF: UNAM, 1981). 266 Teresa Mar?a Careaga Soriano, Mi M?xico de los veintes (M?xico, DF: UNAM, 1994), 17-18. 267 Salvador Rivero y Mart?nez, Entrop?a: Calor humano de una ciudad (M?xico, 1920-1930) vol. 1 (M?xico, DF: Porrua, 1982), 189. 268 M?xico, Secretar?a de Fomento, Oficina Tipogr?fica, Censo de Poblaci?n 1930; M?xico, Secretar?a de Fomento, Oficina Tipogr?fica, Censo de Poblaci?n 1940. 95 Santa Mar?a residents looked to their neighborhood as a source of pride and an outward manifestation of their civic virtue, religious convictions, and class identity. Yet political instability and continuing economic troubles in the post-revolutionary period disrupted urban services and maintenance. Jos? Mar?a Benitez remembers how ?the city found itself aging? from neglect.269 Santa Mar?a, like many neighborhoods in the city, suffered from the proper provisioning of potable water, lighting, garbage collection, and street cleaning. The Moorish-styled pavilion on the alameda faced disrepair and residents complained about unhealthy sanitary conditions in the neighborhood?s theaters.270 Officials and residents also blamed unsanitary conditions on the Barrio de Atlampa that buttressed Santa Mar?a to the northwest where the Carranza administration (1917-1920) had given out for free land to workers and the poor.271 A notorious criminal band called the Grey Automobile Gang terrorized the well-to-do residents of Mexico City in the 1920s and represented the world turned upside down that the Revolution had wrought.272 According to newspaper reports, the gang first targeted the wealthy families in Santa Mar?a.273 Gang members disguised themselves as military police with search warrants and entered homes and businesses 269 Benitez, 139-140. 270 AHCM, Gobierno del Distrito, Diversiones, vol. 1398, exp. 1236 and vol. 1399, exp. 1254 (1913). 271 Berra Stoppa, ?La expansi?n de la Ciudad de M?xico y los conflictos urbanos. 1900-1930? (PhD diss., El Colegio de M?xico, 1982), 114, 207. 272 ?Existe en M?xico una banda de ladrones de automoviles,? Cronos, June 21, 1922, p. 1. Public speculation that some Carrancista generals were colluding with the gang spread with news that General Pablo Gonz?lez, then governor of the Federal District, had signed the search warrants. 273 See Agust?n S?nchez Gonz?lez, La banda del autom?vil gris (M?xico, DF: Sansores & Aljure, 1997). 96 under the pretense of looking for enemy fighters and/or weaponry.274 Other assaults by armed individuals occurred daily.275 In 1925, Jos? Guti?rrez, the owner of a store called "La Colonial" situated in Santa Mar?a, filed a police report after assailants the previous evening robbed his establishment of merchandise worth more than a 1000 pesos.276 That same year, a Santa Mar?a butcher Jos? Ravale complained that robbers took a copper pan and other objects valuing 200 pesos from his store.277 Many of the neighborhood?s residents associated high levels of criminal activity with the lack of lighting and proper policing.278 Concerns about safety appeared in the midst of the Revolution. Residents also blamed the neighborhood?s poor conditions on an increase in vagrants and a lack of spaces for respectable enjoyment. In the midst of the Revolution, residents petitioned the city for material improvements. In a handwritten letter dated March 1913, Pedro Marr?n complained to the city governor about the neighborhood?s abandoned pavilion that had become a magnet for vagrants. Marr?n asked for the repavement of the pavilion floor and for the installation of 274 The criminal gang inspired a ballad called the Corrido de la banda del autm?vil gris. See Antonio Avitia Hern?ndez, Corridos de la capital (M?xico, DF: Conaculta, 2000), 102-103. In 1919, the production company Aztec Films, founded by General Pablo Gonz?lez, Mim? Derba, and Enrique Rosas, produced a movie about the Grey Automobile Gang. S?nchez Gonz?lez, La banda del autom?vil gris, 84 and 87. 275 ?La inseguridad en el Distrito Federal,? Cronos, July 10, 1922, 1a, p. 3. 276 ?La noche de ayer fue abundante en as altos y robos,? El Universal Gr?fico, February 10, 1925, 9, AGN, IPS, caja 7, exp. 1, fs: 91. 277 ?Robos, as altos y otras actividades de los bandidos,? El Universal, February 6, 1925, 2a, p. 10, AGN, IPS, caja 7, exp.1, fs: 52. 278 ?La falta de policia garantiza la delincuencia,? El Globe de M?xico, January 28, 1925, 2a, p. 1, AGN, Oficina de Informaci?n Pol?tica y Social [IPS], caja 7, exp. 1, fs: 12; ?Empieza asumir la m?s graves proporciones la inseguridad en la capital,? El Universal Gr?fico de M?xico, February 3, 1925, 2, AGN, IPS, caja 7, exp. 1, fs: 43; ?Una noche macabre: altos y robos en toda la poblaci?n,? El Universal de M?xico, February 4, 1925, 9, sec. 1, AGN, IPS, caja 7, exp. 1, fs: 47. 97 electrical lights. Residents, Marr?n argued, wanted to use the pavilion as a cultural center for roller-skating, parties and exhibitions of movies. He assured the municipality that morality would reign again in the square.279 In 1919, the Santa Mar?a residents reestablished the Porfirian era Material Improvement Committee to work towards improving their properties and the neighborhood, in many cases contributing their own economic resources. The committee organized neighborhood kermesses to collect funds to improve lighting, plant trees, and construct a social and sports center, among other projects.280 Santa Mar?a?s improvement committee joined others that sprang up throughout Mexico City.281 Neighborhood organizations provided one of the main avenues for middle- class participation at both a city and neighborhood level in the debates over urbanization. Luckily for Santa Mar?a residents in the 1920s, two municipal councilors who lived in the neighborhood petitioned for improvements. In 1922, they argued for the construction of a new market to serve an increasing population and to replace the numerous street stalls.282 After three years Santa Mar?a received a new modern market befitting its middle-class residents. A year later, most of the major streets of the neighborhood were finally paved.283 In 1925, Santa Mar?a?s improvement 279 AHCM, vol. 1398, exp. 1236 (March 19, 1913). 280 ?Juntas de mejoras de Santa Mar?a la Ribera,? Bolet?n Municipal, August 31, 1925, 17, AHCM. 281 ?Las juntas vecinales,? Bolet?n Municipal, September 12, 1919, 585-586, AHCM. 282 Bolet?n Municipal, February 24, 1922, 123-125, AHCM. 283 Many public works were finally completed when the Partido Laborista Mexicana took power of the municipality between 1925 and 1928. For photos of the market, see Bolet?n Municipal, April 30, 1926, 15-17. For photos of the newly-paved streets in the colonia, see Bolet?n Municipal, July 31, 1926, 21- 23, AHCM; Bolet?n Municipal, November 30, 1927, 41-47, AHCM. 98 committee put forward the idea of having each house install an incandescent light. The committee also arranged for regular music concerts to be held in the alameda. Committee members proposed a social and sport center, a swimming pool, the planting of trees, and the construction of a bridge over the Central and Mexican Railways to facilitate the movement between the neighborhoods of Santa Mar?a and Guerrero. In addition, they proposed to establish a private security service, construct a children?s park, establish a Red Cross emergency stand, water the unpaved streets of barrio de Atlampa, build a fire station, and drain the Consulado River.284 Defending Christ in the Streets of Santa Mar?a la Ribera, 1920s Community efforts in Santa Mar?a could and did arise out of religious convictions. In 1926, in the midst of economic and social instability, the Calles administration launched an assault on the Roman Catholic Church. A vociferous counter-attack by Mexico City?s faithful arose in response. Resistance to the state?s anticlerical measures in the so-called Calles Law took various forms, usually under the organizing power of the National Defense League of Religious Freedom (Liga Nacional para la Defensa de la Libertad Religiosa).285 Residents of Santa Mar?a joined the Liga, including members of the neighborhood?s prominent Lim?n y Lascur?in family. The head of the family, a doctor, was a devoutly religious man. Before the Revolution he had been a member of the short-lived pre-revolutionary National Catholic Party. When the authorities shut down a convent in the city and the 284 ?Juntas de mejoras de Santa Mar?a la Ribera,? Bolet?n Municipal, August 31, 1925, 17, AHCM. 285 The LNDR was founded in Mexico City on March 9, 1925. They demanded the right to choice in education, rights for Roman Catholics, the Roman Catholic Church, and Catholic workers. 99 order of nuns walked into Santa Mar?a looking for assistance, he helped them find places to stay and rented cars to drive them to people?s homes.286 The father?s espousal of political activity meant that all the family members became actively involved in the Liga. They sold lottery tickets to raise money to buy medicine, food, and weapons for the Cristero fighters in the provinces.287 Their activities drew police suspicion and surveillance. The arrest of one brother left the family bereft with no news of his whereabouts for three days. Another brother had himself arrested for public drunkenness in order to enter the prison and find his sibling. Other repercussions included the confiscation of their home, first on Sabino Street and then on Naranjo Street.288 The family joined many other individuals from Santa Mar?a, like Father Troncoso. While director of the Colegio Josefino in Santa Mar?a, Troncoso was put under investigation by the secret police. The spy could not help but describe Troncoso as a ?cultured (culto) man of exceptional intelligence.?289 In response to the Calles Law, the Mexican Catholic hierarchy suspended public religious worship in July 1926. But many of the faithful continued to attend clandestine masses.290 Reports housed in the Social and Political Investigations archive reveal the tense atmosphere in Mexico City at this time. Some of the 286 Cristina Lim?n Lascur?in, interview with Armando Hitzelin ?gido Villareal, March 9, 2002, recorded on cassette and held in the possession of Armando Hitzelin ?gido Villareal. 287 Mar?a de los Angeles Lim?n y Lascur?in, interview with author, April 17, 2007, Cuernavaca, Mexico. Cristeros were Mexican Roman Catholics committed to fighting the anticlerical laws enforced by the Calles administration. 288 Mar?a de los Angeles Lim?n y Lascur?in, interview with author, April 17, 2007, Cuernavaca, Mexico. 289 AGN, IPS, vol. 228, exp. 33, Fs: 40-41 (June 7, 1925). 290 Salvado Rivero y Mart?nez, Entrop?a: Calor humano de una ciudad, vol. 2 (M?xico, DF: Joaquin Porrua, 1982), 82. 100 investigations responded to reports from citizens, sometimes anonymous, about suspicious activities or people in their neighborhood or workplace. In 1926, one government agent investigated the presence of an oratory on Cedro Street on the property of Carolina Troncoso.291 Other investigations inquired into a female religious community on Naranjo Street.292 Investigators also spied on suspected religious meetings, such as one on Chopo Street thought to have seditious intentions against the government.293 For some Santa Mar?a residents, the coordination of clandestine services and meetings united the neighborhood. Families hid priests in their homes and held secret religious services to which they would invite over their friends and neighbors. When the police entered the home looking for priests or evidence of religious worship, neighbors warned each other so that propaganda could be flushed down toilets and priests might escape through the back door.294 A united front helped mitigate the high price for clandestine worship, including imprisonment. Cristina Limon Lascur?in remembers how her family invited others over to attend Mass or a holy hour. The police often raided such gatherings and brought the participants on foot to the police 291 The report does not indicate if Carolina was a relation to Father Troncoso. AGN, DGG, Violaci?n Ley de Cultos, caja 37, exp. 347 (29) 42 (May 4, 1926). 292 AGN, DGG, Violaci?n Ley de Cultos, caja 5, exp. 2.345 (29) 47. In October 1929, three agents reported that they agreed that the two persons living there looked more or less like nuns but their pedestrian clothing suggested otherwise. AGN, IPS, vol. 49, exp.2, fs: 140 (October 19, 1929). 293 AGN, IPS. vol. 305, exp. 265 (February, 17, 1932). 294 Mar?a de los Angeles Lim?n y Lascur?in, interview with author, April 17, 2007, Cuernavaca, Mexico. 101 station.295 As they were walked to the police station, the faithful sang religious hymns and prayed the rosary.296 The successful efforts of lay Catholics to hold clandestine religious services began to worry the church hierarchy. In the newspaper for the parish of El Esp?ritu Santo in Santa Mar?a, El Mensajero Parroquial, an August 1929 article acknowledged the ?extraordinary? privileges given to lay members. In the years between 1926 and 1929, the Church had authorized the celebration of Masses in houses, the holding of the Reserved Sacrament, baptism and weddings in private homes, and the reception of Communion without canonical fasting, among other things.297 The article stated that these privileges were suspended in the parish, as ? things returned to their normal state.? Mass was to be celebrated only in churches or in private oratories sanctioned by the Church. Subsequent efforts to clamp down on private religious spaces and activities suggest that both continued much to the consternation of Church authorities. The following year, a circular to priests in the Federal District reminded clerics that private oratories were permitted only with a proper license. In 1931, the archbishop ordered the capital?s parish rectors to inform him of the number of private oratories that existed.298 295 The police station was located next to the National Lottery building on Ejido Street. Apparently, this building was dedicated exclusively to Catholic prisoners. Mar?a Cristina Lim?n y Lascur?in, ?Una remembranza de tiempos inolvidables? (1998, unpublished manuscript in author?s possession), 6, 11, 12. 296 Mar?a Cristina Lim?n y Lascur?in, ?Una remembranza de tiempos inolvidables,? 12. The lyrics of ?Corrido el Boycott? describe the Catholics who ?will sing happily/ in streets and plazas/ in the palace until the prison.? Armando de Mar?a y Campos, La revoluci?n mexicana a trav?s de los corridos populares, vol. 2 (M?xico, DF: INHERM, 1962), 349-350. 297 ?Suspensi?n de privilegios,? El Mensajero Parroquial, August 1929, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 2, AGMJ, IGL-04, leg. Esp?ritu Santo de Santa Mar?a la Ribera. 298 AHAM, Base Pascual D?az Barreto, caja 57, exp. 83 (March 10, 1930). For the next year, see 102 The absence of Catholic priests left parishes in the hands of neighborhood residents, who organized daily prayers of the rosary and on Sundays read the Mass and a little of instruction for those who attended. Women initiated and carried out much of the clandestine activity.299 Growing up in the neighborhood of Santa Mar?a during the 1920s, Amalia L?pez Reyes remembers her mother?s involvement in defying government bans on religious services. L?pez Reyes would accompany her mother to the El Esp?ritu Santo Church. To avoid police detection, they entered a secret door to the basement and sat in the catacombs reading Scripture. Other times, they met in someone?s house. For the first time, women and men met together in secret to read the Bible. L?pez Reyes recalls proudly how her mother read Mass on Sunday mornings as well as ?gave lectures and explained the reading as though she were a type of priest.?300 For many Catholic women, the 1920s conflict brought into tension their public activities and notions of femininity held by the Roman Catholic Church. These women marched in public protests, handed out propaganda on the street, and broke the law by attending and holding religious services. They opened their homes to the neighborhood, turning their domestic interiors into spaces of religious worship and Circular 14, AHAM, Base Pascual D?az Barreto, caja 57, exp. 71 (April 11, 1931). He also reminds the priests that specific permission must be granted in order to hold a private oratorio celebration of Mass in homes. 299 Mar?a Cristina Lim?n y Lascur?in, ?Una remembranza de tiempos inolvidables,? 11. For a similar argument made elsewhere in Mexico, see Matthew Butler, ?Keeping the Faith in Revolutionary Mexico: Clerical and Lay Resistance to Religious Persecution, East Michoac?n, 1926-1929,? The Americas 59/1 (July 2002): 9-32. 300 Amalia L?pez Reyes, ?Problema religioso en M?xico y su repercussion en la colonia Santa Mar?a la Ribera,? (paper presented at the Third Community Colloquium entitled ?Una mirada a la Santa Mar?a la Ribera,? Mexico City, November 26-27, 2003, recorded on cassette tape and held at the Museo Universitario del Chopo, Mexico City). 103 education. The persecution allowed Catholic women to defy traditional constraints on female behavior and public speech by abrogating responsibility for their own actions and words. Yet this circumvention of gender norms did not directly attack the Catholic status quo, since their outspokenness was in favor of reaffirming the importance of Christian morals and decency to Mexican femininity. Nevertheless, at times they came into conflict with the Church?s male hierarchy.301 With the priests in hiding, women began to perform religious services without direct supervision from male clerics. The successful efforts of faithful lay Catholics to hold clandestine services began to worry the Church hierarchy. Catholic women experienced articulations of femininity on several different levels ? the personal, the state, and the church ? simultaneously though not necessarily in a systematic or coherent way and not without conflict.302 Religious Education Goes Underground The anticlerical reforms of the Calles administration clamped down on religious schools. In March 1926, the administration suspended 110 Roman Catholic schools, expelled 200 priests, and closed 83 oratories.303 Cristina Limon Lascur?in recalls how one day she and her two sisters entered their school, the Colegio de las 301 See Kristina A. Boylan, ?Gendering the Faith and Altering the Nation: Mexican Catholic Women?s Activism, 1917-1940,? in Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico, eds. Jocelyn Olcott, Mary Kay Vaughan, and Gabriela Cano (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 208. 302 Rebecca J. Lester, Jesus in Our Wombs: Embodying Modernity in a Mexican Convent (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005). 303 Salvador Rivero y Mart?nez, Entrop?a: Calor humano de una ciudad (M?xico 1920-1930) vol. 2 (M?xico, DF: Porrua, 1982), 15, 25. 104 Madres del Sagrado Coraz?n, to find the nuns without their habits. The students found the sight so distressing that they began to cry inconsolably at the nuns? humiliation.304 Some religious schools changed their names to disguise the institution as either sports or cultural center or a secular private school. The fictitious names often implied that they taught art, painting, foreign languages, cooking, sewing, and pastry making, although in reality they continued to function as a primary or secondary school. Some religious schools were nominally secularized in terms of outward signs of religiosity. Inspectors frequently showed up looking for religious articles like a cross hanging on the wall, which if found they demanded removed.305 When schools feared suspicion or received a warning, the building was often abandoned. Some schools that had been closed down reopened in other places and under new names. For example, a small group of students under the direction of the Lasallista brothers returned to Santa Mar?a by opening up a business school.306 Some religious schools went underground to evade education inspectors. Women, in particular, ensured that these educational cells at the primary level continued with religious curriculum. Pro-Catholic female teachers organized to give clandestine religious instruction in houses lent to them by families.307 As a young 304 Mar?a Cristina Lim?n y Lascur?in, ?Una remembranza de tiempos inolvidables,? 8 and 10. 305 Torres Septi?n, La educaci?n privada en M?xico, 1903-1976, 147, 151-152. See also Valentina Torres Septi?n, ?La educaci?n entre sombras: Los a?os de persecuci?n? (Paper presented at Los Cristeros: Conferencias del Ciclo de Primavera de 1996, Centro de Estudios de Historia de M?xico, M?xico, DF, 1996). 306 Torres Septi?n, La educaci?n privada en M?xico, 1903-1976, 151-152. 307 Jorge Prieto Laurens, Instituto Mora, Proyecto de la Historia Oral [PHO], PHO 3/2, 26. 105 child living at this time in Santa Mar?a, Rafael Moyo Garc?a recalls how he and his classmates hid a small bench and their religious books under their shirts as they walked to classes being held in someone?s home. Fearful of spies, they looked around for strangers on the street corners before entering.308 Teachers kept shutters closed to keep out prying eyes of denouncers. Frequently, the location of the classes changed, moving from one house to another every few months, and sometimes every few weeks, in order to escape detection.309 For years, neighbors? complaints continued to object to the existence of secretive religious schools. Two residents living on Pino Street denounced the activities at La Sagrada Familia Church on Santa Mar?a la Ribera Street in a letter from December 1937. They complained that they saw enter ?three groups of school children of different ages led by five older women who appeared to be nuns.?310 In an IPS report, Inspector V-12 revealed that he heard a sung Mass and an ?antisocialist? sermon. Upon leaving the church, a cat and mouse game ensued between the students and teachers and the inspector. In order to the shake the tail of the inspector, the children dispersed in a small garden. Later, they hid in a rented car for an hour before leaving in small groups. Reuniting on Puente de Alvarado Avenue, the children made an infinite number of circles until finally arriving at Sadi Carnot Street.311 The children and teachers, like many of the middle-class Roman Catholic families in 308 Rafael Moyo Garc?a, interview with author, April 25, 2007, Mexico City, Mexico. Born in 1928, Moyo Garc?a moved to Santa Mar?a la Ribera between 1933 and 1934. 309 Rafael Moyo Garc?a, interview with author, April 25, 2007, Mexico City, Mexico. Since the clandestine schools were not officially recognized, Moyo Garc?a had to take an exam to certify his grade level during his sixth year of education. 310 AGN, DGG, Violaci?n Ley de Cultos. caja 5, bis. 2.345.1 (29) 29397. 311 AGN, IPS, vol. 73, exp. 1, fs: 263 (December 3, 1937). 106 Santa Mar?a, went to great lengths to practice their faith despite the climate of hostility and suspicion. Conclusion The attack on Catholicism by the Calles administration mobilized residents of Santa Mar?a la Ribera to protect their religious practices, sacred spaces, and ways of life. The neighborhood?s underground schools and secret oratories signaled the unabated Catholicism of the colonia. Unlike earlier organizing, the Cristero years led residents to take part in politically antagonistic and even dangerous community activism. For Santa Mar?a residents, the neighborhood served as the frontline of their defense against anti-clerical politics. Through their activities they claimed and reclaimed religious spaces. Santa Mar?a neighbors also asserted a vociferous counter- attack on policies that they felt undermined their sense of a middle-class identity, which they tied to Catholic practices and beliefs. Since the late Porfiriato residents shaped the face of the colonia through their participation in organizations like neighborhood improvement committees. In the process, the colonia itself came to represent middle-class life with its attendant values based on edification, patriotism, respectability, and Catholicism. Sponsorship of workers? circles vocalized middle-class values and helped define the boundaries between the middle and working classes. At home, middle-class residents displayed their sense of propriety and decorum in their interior d?cor. After the Revolution, the colonia stood in disrepair. Many of the wealthier residents moved out and remaining inhabitants organized to petition the new post- 107 revolutionary administrations for neighborhood improvements. Petitions and directives demonstrate residents? desire for public spaces suitable for ?respectable? families. But, as we will see in the next chapter, amidst loss, disorder, and anxiety came an explosion of song, dance, and nightlife. In Santa Mar?a and throughout the city, young men and women spilled out of co-educational classrooms and administrative offices. To the latest rhythms heard over the radio, they primped themselves for a night at the movies or at the dance hall, swinging in the arms of another. 108 Chapter 4: Spectacle and Middle-Class Youth in the Capital City, 1920-1940 Introduction In the 1920s, Mexico City?s young adults flocked to the cheap amusements of theaters, movie houses, dance halls, and cabarets. Through an array of cheap consumer goods, these young capitalinos (residents of Mexico City) fashioned identities that shook previous notions of gender, class, and sexuality. Along with manifestations of technological change, modernity called forth new forms of gendered self-consciousness, bodily self-expression, and interpersonal relations. The emergence of a modern subjectivity among the young working- and middle-class women and men of Mexico City formed a new relationship to body and psyche. Indeed, as Harvie Ferguson argues, modernity only became meaningful once individuals embodied new ways of experiencing the world.312 Mass popular culture shook class-based notions of decency and respectability, as members of the middle class, along with their poorer and richer cousins, consumed new types of products and culture. For conservatives and pious Catholics, modern forms of dress and behavior represented foreign and destructive influences that threatened traditional Mexican customs. On the streets, in the shops, and in the dance halls, Mexico City?s middle- class youth embraced and reformulated their nation?s post-revolutionary modernity. 312 Harvie Ferguson, Modernity and Subjectivity: Body, Soul, Spirit (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000), 20. 109 Cheap Pleasures for the Chica Moderna Beginning in the 1890s, French and German families opened Mexico City?s first department stores, where ornate window displays enticed shoppers into a palace of wonder and desire. In the early decades of the post-revolutionary period, mass marketers found an eager audience in Mexico City, where residents were attempting to rebuild, regain, and reinvent their lives. Moreover, the 1920s brought a shift in attitude toward the female body. During the Porfiriato (1876-1910), only women with questionable moral character like stage actresses and prostitutes wore makeup. Etiquette books raised suspicions about what a woman had to hide behind a ?made up? face and condemned makeup for its ability to falsify a woman?s inner spirit. Short stories like those written by the Mexican author Jos? Thom?s de Cu?llar literally exposed women?s dark skin behind whitening makeup and gloves.313 In contrast, the early twentieth-century cosmetics industry encouraged women to accentuate or minimize specific facial features.314 In the pages of the magazine Zig Zag, popular Mexican satirist S?nchez Filmador poked fun at the generational differences accentuated by modern life. In one piece from 1921, an aged aunt asks her youthful niece why she does not ?leave [her eyebrows] the way God gave them to her?? Without interrupting the painting of her 313 For example, see Jos? Thom?s de Cu?llar, ?Having A Ball? in The Magic Lantern: Having A Ball and Christmas Eve, trans. Margaret Carson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). 314 On the debates about makeup elsewhere, see Sabine Hake, ? In the Mirror of Fashion,? in Women in the Metropolis: Gender and Modernity in Weimar Culture, ed. Katharina von Ankum (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 185-201; Kathy Peiss, ?Making Up, Making Over: Cosmetics, Consumer Culture, and Women?s Identity,? in The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective, ed. Victoria de Grazia with Ellen Furlough (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 311-336. 110 eyebrows, the niece replies, ?Because God gave me very few.?315 In another Zig Zag illustration by Filmador, a grandmother complains about the crazy girls who wear rouge, knee-length skirts, and transparent-sleeved blouses. Her granddaughter dismisses the objections, replying that all girls dress in such fashions and nobody pays any attention to the girls? exposed calves.316 The consumer market and changes in the life cycle fueled a bourgeoning youth culture. Increasingly, middle-class families sent their children to school for a longer period of time. Young women started working outside the home in greater numbers. While some of them worked to support their families, others worked out of a sense of independence and desire for spending power. Marketers and advertisers exploited the new youth culture to sell a wide range of products aimed at students and young working professionals. Consumerism?s emphasis on the individual and on the gratification of personal desires celebrated this liminal stage. In the process, notions about the purpose and meaning of life could shift. In Julio Jim?nez Rueda?s play C?ndido Cordero, Public Employee, which debuted in Mexico City in 1925, the secretary Flora represents the fashionable modern girl (chica moderna) who sports bobbed hair and knee-length dresses. At her office desk, she sits sleepily and fixes her eyebrows. She recounts her escapades from the night before and advises her coworker Coti ?to get the most out of [life] as possible.?317 315 The aunt also criticizes her niece for going to the cinema with her boyfriend during the week of Lent. Sanch?z Filmador, ?Serm?n de cuaresma,? Zig Zag, March 17, 1921, p. 43. 316 S?nchez Filmador, ?Cosas de viejos,? Zig Zag, January 13, 1921, p. 22. 317 Julio Jim?nez Rueda, C?ndido Cordero, empleado p?blico; farsa en tres actos (M?xico, DF: Tallers gr?ficos de la naci?n, 1928), 56. 111 The advent of affordable fashions in dress and accoutrements allowed a larger percentage of residents to participate in consumer culture?s promise of instant gratification and self-transformation. For the first time, the ready-to-wear industry made cheap versions of high-style fashions accessible to a broad segment of the female population. The simplification of styles also made dress designs easier to reproduce at home, accompanied by new marketing strategies that included direct mail-order catalogs of knitting patterns, yarns, and fabric.318 At vocational schools or at home, women stitched together modish dresses using paper patterns shared between family members and friends. Women could choose from fabrics that came in new vibrant colors, like a matted yellow named ?tango? after the popular risqu? dance.319 Mexico City elites could not claim exclusive possession of the styles identified with modernity, as the diffuse nature of the mass market made fashions available to a wide range of Mexicans. Women?s embrace of the modern involved something as simple as cutting their hair into a bob. Contemporary commentator Salvador Novo described how the city?s barbershops were not prepared for the ?invasion? of young women who wanted their hair cut short. To accommodate the demand from women of all classes and social standing, beauty salons opened in neighborhoods ranging from those of the elite to those of the tenement-house poor.320 318 Helen Harden Chenut, The Fabric of Gender: Working-Class Culture in Third Republic France (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005), 298. 319 See Salvador Rivero y Mart?nez, Entrop?a: Calor humano de una ciudad (M?xico 1920-1930), vol.1 (M?xico, DF: Porrua, 1982), 368 (September 1923). 320 Salvador Novo, Nueva grandeza mexicana (M?xico: DF: Conaculta, 1946), 57. 112 Commercial advertisements that encouraged women to cultivate a modern look also promoted a new ethic of physical self-improvement and hygiene. Ads for products like soap, toothpaste, and mouthwash heightened fears over proper personal hygiene, making both women and men sensitive to bodily sights and odors that may not have bothered a previous generation. In the rapidly expanding city, these fears were magnified. As individuals became increasingly anonymous, first impressions mattered. Moreover, physical proximity to the opposite sex increased as women entered the public spaces of classrooms, offices, trams, and movie theaters. Advertisers equated good hygiene not only with beauty and sex appeal, but also with the guarantee of future matrimony. For instance, Colgate toothpaste alarmed young readers with the story about Irene whose bad breath threatened to leave her a spinster.321 Through movie star endorsements, cosmetics companies promised customers the features of popular actresses. Max Factor, for instance, guaranteed the lips of famed American movie star Clara Bow.322 An announcement for the film Macho y hembra even advertised the movie for women ?to learn how to get rid of wrinkles and watch how the star Bebe Daniels puts on gloves.? In 1923, a fashion show held at the Olimpia Theater linked the latest fashions with the cinema, at least in the minds of the audience.323 321 Advertisement, ??Irene, vas a ser una solterona?? La Familia, May 1937. 322 For example, see Nuestra Ciudad, April 1930, p. 32. 323 See Aurelio de los Reyes, Cine y sociedad en M?xico, 1896-1930: Bajo el cielo de M?xico Vol. 2, 1920-1924 (M?xico, DF: UNAM, 1993), 289. See also ?Stabat Mater cantada en el Olimpia esta noche,? Exc?lsior, March 29, 1923, p. 7. 113 As fashions and social behaviors changed, new products appeared for female consumers. Higher hemlines that uncovered women's legs meant that stockings became an important fashion item. One company advertised its new product, Holeproof stockings, for the discerning female shopper who spent much of her earnings on replacing poor-quality stockings.324 Cigarette companies aggressively marketed to young women, as smoking became less of a female taboo.325 The Hollywood cigarette company associated its product with stylish modernity. Smokers of Hollywoods would not only blow smoke but also become part of the fashionable set (?echan humo, sino que ?echan tipo.??)326 Consumerism offered a means to experiment with fashioning a modern self and in the process signified an investment in modernity. Participation in consumer culture presumed an enchantment with the modern itself.327 The transformative powers of commodities and modernity?s liberatory promises incited dreams that transcended class and national boundaries. In C?ndido Cordero, Manuela, one of Mr. Cordero?s daughters, insists she will become a Hollywood movie star. After all, as she proudly tells her father, she has the face of Mary Astor and Pola Negri, the eyes of Norma Talmadge, and the passionate kisses of B?rbara la Mar.328 Described as a slender girl with affectations, she accuses her father of cutting off her ?brilliant? career 324 El Universal, November 5, 1922, 2a, p. 2. 325 Omega, December 17, 1936, p. 4. 326 ?Ambas son cantantes,? Omega, January 21, 1937, p. 4. The cartoon contrasts a ?modern? singer with plucked eyebrows and bleached blonde hair to a large hipped and large breasted opera singer. 327 Rita Felski, The Gender of Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 144. Similarly, in early twentieth-century Cairo, a middle-class desire to be modern fueled an embrace of consumerism. Wilson Chacko Jacob, ?Working Out Egypt: Masculinity and Subject Formation Between Colonial Modernity and Nationalism, 1870-1940? (PhD Diss., New York University, 2005). 328 Jim?nez Rueda, C?ndido Cordero, 34. 114 in Hollywood and forcing her to become yet another ?stupid girl? found among the typists of public offices. Perhaps Manuela, like surely the play?s female audience members, had read about the real and exaggerated humble beginnings of Hollywood stars. If a working-class Brooklyn girl like Clara Bow could find fame, maybe Mexico City?s chicas modernas also could dream big. Muscular Manliness Counters Modernity?s Threat to Mexican Men Modern culture also offered men a variety of styles to model aided by new fashions, consumer products, and the looks of film stars. Salvador Rivero y Mart?nez remembers how ?conservative men? dressed ?a la inglesa? with striped or plaid shirts, pants with flaps, and Spanish shoes. Other men preferred pleated and belted pants and wore their hair greased ?a lo Valentino,? after the famed actor Rudolph Valentino. Others wore a ?very Americanized? look that consisted of simple, loose and comfortable clothes, scuffed shoes, and unkempt hair.329 A muscular body became one of the most sought after ideals for many male youths. The daily El Universal ran ads for sporting goods that called on the male reader to ?Develop Your Strength.?330 Catholic student publications reflected their readers? enthusiasm for physical exercise and bodybuilding. In one ad, a well-built young man lifts weights among the bookshelves and portraits of his family?s living 329 Salvador Rivero y Mart?nez, Entrop?a: Calor humano de una ciudad (M?xico 1920-1930), vol.1 (M?xico, DF: Porrua, 1982), 497 (September 1929). 330 See El Universal, July 10, 1922, 1a, p. 8. 115 room.331 A new emphasis on personal strength came from various influences. As part of larger eugenics efforts, post-revolutionary educators and reformers encouraged both working- and middle-class young men to funnel their energy into sports and physical exercise. To their customary cleanliness inspections, public schools added for men and women both gymnastics and other sports while the government introduced swimming pools to schools where and when it could. Young men practiced gymnastics and played soccer and basketball at clubs like the Young Men?s Christian Association. Inaugurated in 1909, the Mexico City YMCA building contained a gymnasium, a basketball court, a steam bath, and punching bags for boxing. A piano playing American marching band music accompanied gymnastic classes. Rivero y Mart?nez recalls how his older brother Fernando brought him to the YMCA after assuring their mother that they were safe from Protestant evangelizing.332 As a young man in the 1930s, Gregorio Walerstein learned judo at the YMCA, where he and his Jewish friends were accepted. Outside the YMCA, Walerstein played on the student-league basketball team of the School of Commerce.333 Young Catholic men?s attraction to the YMCA facilities and sports programs led the city?s archbishop to mandate against Catholic involvement in the Protestant institution. In a directive to the city?s priests, the Archbishop Jos? Mora y del R?o called on the clergy to speak from the pulpit about the ?gravest danger? that youth 331 Other product advertisements included calculating machines, Oliver typewriters, and Kodak cameras. See Estatutos o Bases Generales de la Liga Nacional de Estudiantes Cat?licos, 1912, Centro de Estudios de Historia de M?xico (CONDUMEX), fondo CLXXXII, caja 1, leg. 05. 332 Rivero y Mart?nez, vol. 1, 81-83 (August 1920). Quote taken from p. 81. 333 Gregorio Walerstein, Instituto Mora, Proyecto Historia Oral, PHO 2/25. 116 faced at the YMCA.334 The archbishop refused to sanction requests by young men who wrote to the archdiocese asking for permission to join the YMCA.335 As an alternative, young Catholics joined other private organizations. For instance, Jos? de Le?n Toral, a leader of the Young Men?s Catholic Association (Asociaci?n Cat?lica Juventud Masculina) in Santa Mar?a la Ribera, joined the Club de Alvardo, where he competed in running and gymnastics and played on the soccer team.336 Family photographs record the gym that Jos? Toral built in the back lot of his parents? house, where he trained on parallel bars and boxed with cousins and friends. In front of the camera, Toral posed shirtless while flexing his muscles.337 For many middle-class men like Toral who worked in the office of the Gerber company, office work presented a dilemma. Advertisers portrayed white-collar work as representative of the ideal modern lifestyle. Emphasizing how personal appearance marked social distinction, the Gillette Company assured the potential buyer that the use of its razor ensured an ?air of distinction so appreciated by good society.?338 Touting its razor as the most scientific shaving instrument available, the company promised a ?sensation of absolute cleanliness.?339 By the early 1920s, according to one newspaper article, young male students shaved their faces ?a la moderna? with 334 The directive refers to previous declarations made by Holy Office on November 5, 1921. See Archivo Hist?rico del Arzobispado de M?xico [AHAM], Base de Jos? Mora y del R?o, caja 69, exp. 48 (March 12, 1922). 335 See AHAM, Base de Jos? Mora y del R?o, caja 90, exp. 62 (August 19, 1925). 336 Esperanza de Le?n interview with author, March 12, 2007, Mexico City, Mexico. Esperanza de Le?n is the daughter of Jos? Le?n de Toral. 337 Papers of Jos? de Le?n Toral (private archive of Esperanza de Le?n, Mexico City, Mexico). 338 See Excelsior, January 12, 1923, 1a, p. 7. 339 See El Universal, August 3, 1927, 1a, p. 10. 117 the help of a ?gilette? [sic].340 The male office employee was far removed from the more physical kinds of work found in an artisan shop or factory floor. Clean-shaved, neatly dressed, and sweet-smelling, the modern world of the office ?feminized? men. Advertisements heightened anxieties about modern society?s debilitating effects on manhood and offered numerous products that promised to revitalize male consumers.341 As the happy couple in one advertisement for an electricity belt suggested, the regeneration of men made their wives happy and righted the world to its proper gender hierarchy. Along with the stress of the city and office work, the sexualized woman threatened male potency and vigor. A number advertisements for elixirs depicted sexually provocative half-dressed women hovering over men, who presumably lacked the ability to perform adequately inside, and perhaps outside, the bedroom.342 Desire, Affect, and the Experience of Modernity In 1920, the iconic Sal?n M?xico opened its doors to a heterogeneous group of capitalinos. Known as the ?Cathedral of Danz?n,? the building had three floors 340 ??Travesuras de ?muchachos??? Omega, April 17, 1924, 1 and 3. The Gillette Company also urged women to use razors to shave the nape of their necks, which was exposed by the bob hairstyle. See El Universal, 7 August 1927, 3a, p. 6. 341 For the Ovomaltina ad, see El Universal, October 26, 1923, 1a, p. 9; For the electricity belt ad, see El Universal, November 23, 1922, 1a, p. 12. 342 For the Mastin?s Vitamon Tablets ad, see El Universal, June 11, 1922, 2a, p. 3. For some contemporaries, the city itself became associated with the feminine and therefore dangerous for the modern male. In his short story The Firefly (La luci?rnaga) published in 1932, Mariano Azuela laments the transformation of Mexico City into ?that noisy feminine world that imposes its atmosphere on trains, automobiles, buses, converging and diverging pedestrians in the central square.? See Mariano Azuela, ?La luci?rnaga? in 3 Novelas de Mariano Azuela (M?xico, DF: Fondo de Cultura Econ?mica, 1995), 104. Ageeth Sluis similarly argues that architects and artists in the 1920s and 1930s attempted to ?feminize? the spaces of Mexico City. See Ageeth Sluis, ?City of Spectacles: Gender Performance, Revolutionary Reform, and the Creation of Public Space in Mexico City, 1915-1939,? (PhD Diss., University of Arizona, 2006). 118 segregated by social class. According to Rivero y Mart?nez, individuals selected a floor depending on their attire or economic situation.343 Male patrons paid a peso and women entered for free to dance the foxtrot, the tango, the shimmy, and the Charleston. These dances called for a new type of physicality between the sexes in public space. Subtler dances like the danz?n required partners to move in tight harmony and helped transform notions of public intimacy.344 Along with a new relationship to the body, the culture of modernity simultaneously ushered in a transformation in personal affect and public intimacy. Mexican middle-class women experienced the body as something enjoyable in itself. In turn, physical feelings of sensuality and desire became more acknowledged, if not encouraged. Mass media pushed sentimentality out of the private sphere and presented a greater, and much more public, sexual candor than ever before. With cheers, laughs, tears, and sighs, patrons of Mexico City?s arenas shared emotions and their bodies in unprecedented public but also intimate ways. Modernity provided new systems of representation for understanding sensations, emotions, and desires, as well as bodies. For Mexico City residents, films, music, dance, and fashion mediated a new relationship to desires and emotions that flowed through the body.345 343 Rivero y Mart?nez, vol. 1, 393 (January 1924). 344 Marco Vel?zquez and Mary Kay Vaughan, ?Mestizaje and Musical Nationalism in Mexico,? in The Eagle and the Virgin: Nation and Cultural Revolution in Mexico, 1920-1940, eds. Mary Kay Vaughan and Steve Lewis (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 95-118; Robert Buffington, ??La Dancing? Mexicana: Danz?n and the Transformation of Intimacy in Post-Revolutionary Mexico City,? Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 14/1 (March 2005): 87-108; Alberto Dallal, El ?dancing? mexicano (M?xico, DF: SEP/Lecturas Mexicanas, 1987). 345 Harvie Ferguson, Modernity and Subjectivity: Body, Soul, Spirit (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2000), 60; Elsa Mu?iz, Cuerpo, representaci?n y poder: M?xico en los albores de la reconstrucci?n nacional, 1920-1934 (M?xico, DF: UAM, Unidad Azcapotzalco, 2002), 280-281. 119 By the early 1920s, many theater and cinema owners transformed their spaces into dance salons. People flocked to escape economic hardship and embrace new styles. In 1921, Sal?n Rojo initiated two nights of dancing a week. Despite little publicity, the change quickly became a success. For twenty centavos, women and men could dance every Thursday and Sunday. Two years later, the Sal?n Rojo initiated a contest in conjunction with El Dem?crata newspaper. For five weeks, eighteen couples competed in five dance categories (danz?n, fox-trot, one-step, tango, and waltz) under colored lights and surrounded by mirrors. At the Olimpia, the first floor became a spacious middle-class dance hall, where the ?beautiful and distinguished se?oritas of our good society? swayed to the sounds of the city?s best jazz orchestra. The Olimpia in conjunction with El Universal Gr?fico newspaper held dance marathons starting in 1923.346 Capitalinos danced the fashionable yet controversial Shimmy, the Cake Walk and the Two Step.?347 As a young man Rivero y Mart?nez remembers his fellow Mexicans dancing very well, despite their ?much exaggerated and tacky (cursi)? style.348 One popular song poked fun at the fashionable men who imitated the new American styles of dancing: They are the fif?s of the neighborhood dandies of the dance halls that wear, according to fashion, short-tailed jackets and imitate the gringos dancing the one step causing people to laugh 346 De los Reyes, Cine y sociedad en M?xico, 1896-1930, 290-291. See also ?Concurso de fox-trot en el Olimpia,? Exc?lsior, March 15, 1923, 2a, p. 3. 347 Rivero y Mart?nez, vol. 1, 151 (June 1921) and vol. 1, 184 (October 1921). 348 Rivero y Mart?nez, vol. 1, 393 (January 1924). 120 and they don?t know why? At review theaters akin to cabarets, patrons danced ?a la cubana,? ?moving like jelly? and ?throwing the hip or neck back.? The theater premiered shows like Castro Padilla?s ?Shimmy? and "El colmo de la revista" by the Ortega y Prida Company.349 On the forty-four screens of Mexico City?s cinemas in 1924, capitalinos witnessed a similar transformation in gender behavior and interpersonal relations. For forty centavos, residents of Santa Mar?a la Ribera watched Mary Pickford come to life on the screen in Por la puerta del servicio (Through the Back Door, 1921) Meanwhile, Douglas Fairbanks portrayed the modern male in El fif? (The Nut, 1921) at the neighborhood?s five movie theaters.350 In Mexican cinemas, young people learned the art of romance and the skill of kissing.351 Guillermo Zendejas remembers how, as a boy in the 1930s, a girl asked him to ?kiss me, embrace me like they do in the movies.?352 The darkened cinemas gave young sweethearts opportunities to experiment with expressions of love and affection beyond the watchful eye of their parents. Boys and girls exchanged postcards with poetic verses and romantic song lyrics to each other to communicate feelings. While young people had increasing possibilities for personal relations, love letters continued as a mode of middle class 349 Rivero y Mart?nez, vol. 1, 151 (June 1921). 350 For a history of early cinema in Mexico City, see Aurelio de los Reyes, Cine y sociedad en M?xico, 1896-1930: Bajo el cielo de M?xico, 1920-1924, vol. 2. 351 Rivero y Mart?nez, vol. 1, 317 (March 1923). For similar findings in Italy, see Victoria de Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women, Italy 1922-1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 211. 352 Guillermo Zendejas, personal interview with author, Mexico City, Mexico, March 16, 2007. 121 communication.353 In Revista de Revistas in 1923, Margarita Sant?n Fontoura advised women about the best ways to write a letter and reminded them of the importance of good customs in relations of love.354 Theater and film stars depicted on postcards from the 1920s epitomized the fun and spectacle of the sexualized body. Stars like Mar?a Conesa, Celia Padilla, Mimi Derba, and Esperanza Iris unashamedly showed off cropped hair, painted nails, and lipstick while flirting with the camera in revealing outfits.355 Other postcards of couples displayed distinctly modern flirtation, physical contact, and open-mouthed smiles. Postcards depicting women looking straight into the camera, inviting the viewer into the intimate scene, certainly shocked an older generation who associated such a bold gaze and coy smile as the behavior of a prostitute. Movie theaters, dance halls, classrooms, and office spaces allowed for a more direct manner of flirting, outside parental oversight. Students and young office workers passed time in coffee shops like La Flor de M?xico, La Opera, El Globo, Caf? Tacuba, La Copa de Leche, La Blanca, and El F?nix.356 Popular culture referenced this shift in pre-marital relationships. In Candido Cordero, young Manuela unabashedly admits that she has kissed a dashing (gal?n) film producer who she 353 Isabel Fern?ndez Tejedo, Recuerdo de M?xico: La tarjeta postal mexicana, 1882-1930 (M?xico, DF: BANOBRAS, 1994), 124-125. 354 Margarita Sant?n de Fontoura, ?Las cartas femeninas,? Revista de Revistas, July 8, 1923, p. 46 quoted in Mu?iz, 281. 355 Fotos de mujeres, 1925, AGN, Fondo Instrucci?n P?blica y Bellas Artes, Propiedad Artistica y Literatura, caja 451, exp. 3766. 356 Salvador Rivero y Mart?nez, vol. 2, 101 (February 1927). 122 hopes will make her into a star.357 The play also has the office employee Pepito inviting the secretary Coti to a night at the theater followed by dancing at a cabaret. When Coti says she must ask her parents for permission, Pepito remarks that parents have become more yielding to their children?s requests.358 In 1921, satirist S?nchez Filmador poked fun at the new courting rituals. In the past, a suitor discreetly passed a note in the presence of the mother, sister, aunt, and dog. Nowadays, young men give so many kisses that young women cry out ?Ay, don?t be so annoying [empalagoso, literally sickly sweet]!?359 A 1929 newspaper article fretted that parents allowed their daughters to attend cinemas and theaters and to stroll ?alone and very close to their current male wooer,? who did not have matrimony in mind.360 In the home, the gramophone and radio transmitted feelings of romantic love and erotic desire. Beginning in the 1920s, young people became enthusiastic about the energetic rhythms and syncopated beats of jazz. The following decade, the bolero escaped from the cabarets through the radio that extended its sound to the masses.361 The crooning Guty C?rdenas and Agust?n Lara enticed the imaginations of radio listeners.362 Tuning into radio station XEB, listeners heard Felipe Llera sing ?La 357 Jim?nez Rueda, C?ndido Cordero, 36. 358 Jim?nez Rueda, C?ndido Cordero, 70. 359 S?nchez Filmador, ?Cosas de viejos,? Zig Zag, January 13, 1921, p. 22. 360 ?La moda agente de prostituci?n,? El Hombre libre, October 2, 1929, p. 4. 361 Carlos Monsiv?is, ?Bolero: A History,? in Mexican Postcards, trans. John Kraniauskas (London: Verso, 1997), 180. On the bolero, see Mark Pedelty, ?The Bolero: The Birth, Life, and Decline of Mexican Modernity,? Latin American Music Review 20/1 (Spring-Summer 1999): 30-58. 362 Marco Vel?zquez and Mary Kay Vaughan, ?Mestizaje and Musical Nationalism in Mexico,? in The Eagle and the Virgin: Nation and Cultural Revolution in Mexico, 1920-1940, eds. Mary Kay Vaughan and Stephen E. Lewis (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 95-118. By 1929, Mexico City 123 casita? and tandas such as ?Lolita? and ?Conyugal,? and swayed to the voices of Flora Islas Chac?n and Mar?a Bonilla.363 The music spilled over on to the streets of the city as the catchy tunes became part of residents? daily life. They whistled and sang fashionable hits by Mexican songwriters like Manuel Ponce?s "A la orilla de un palmar" and Alfonso Esparza Oteo?s ?Golondrina mensajera.? Esparza Oteo?s fox- trot ?Stambul? had a memorable rhythm perfect for dancing ?a la moda.?364 Fif?es whistled the tune of the American hit song ?Pretty Baby? and repeated the only lyrics they really understood: ?priti beibi.?365 Anxious Critics of Modernity?s Corrupting Influences Proposed governmental legislation and hysterical accounts in newspapers and Catholic publications attested to the anxiety that modernity generated in Mexico City. Municipal councilors spoke out against dance marathons, which they reported as having caused two women to abort spontaneously.366 Catholic women denounced certain types of dancing that encouraged the close contact of bodies of the opposite sex.367 One critic warned that pulsating jazz rhythms were too much for the already boasted nineteen radio stations. See Joy Hayes, Radio Nation: Communication, Popular Culture, and Nationalism in Mexico, 1920-1950 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2000), 30. See also Pablo Due?as and Jes?s Flores y Escalante, XEW: 65 Aniversario (M?xico, DF: Sistema Radi?polis, 1995). 363 Rivero y Mart?nez, vol. 1, 392 (January 1924). 364 Rivero y Mart?nez, vol. 1, 136 (March 1921). 365 Rivero y Mart?nez, vol. 1, 61 (March 1920). Published in 1926, ?Pretty Baby? was written by the popular African-American singer and pianist Tony Jackson (1880-1921). 366 Actas y Versiones del Consejo Consultivo, Tomo 21 ? 2 ? T. 22 1 (February 23, 1933), AHCM. 367 ?Moda y bailes,? Omega, 1922, sec 1, p 1, 4, Archivo Uni?n Femenina Cat?lica Mexicana (UFCM), caja 18, exp. 12. See also ?Los bailes modernos, las modas imperantes y la trata de blancas,? El Universal, 1922, UFCM, caja 18, exp. 13. 124 sensitive and fiery blood of the Latin race.368 Pious Catholics and other conservative- minded Mexicans attacked Agust?n Lara for lyrics that contained public declarations of erotic desires and the worship of women, often prostitutes. Convinced of Lara?s transgression of family values and public morality, in 1936 the Secretary of Public Education prohibited Lara?s songs in schools over concerns that the lyrics corrupted children.369 The new consumer market provoked criticism of consumerism?s pernicious influence on Mexico?s gender norms. Critics particularly invested the female body with responsibility for maintaining traditional notions of decency, class respectability, national customs, and lines of racial and gender identification. In the conservative newspaper Omega, one writer complained that Mexicans were losing customs around gendered behavior ?without protest.? The writer described bobbed-hair women (pelonas) as the Americanization of the Mexican woman and an ?insolent, impudent, nearly savage attack? on Mexican customs.370 For this critic and others, female respectability and decency symbolized the essence of Mexican identity. Modern fashion?s ability to grant social status through the mere display of material attributes unleashed the most furor. For instance, at the height of the pelona craze in 1924, a group of young male preparatory students assaulted a working-class female student who sported a bobbed haircut. The next day, another group attacked 368 ?Esta el ?jazz? condenado a desaparece?? Cronos, June 18, 1922, 2a, p. 2. 369 Mark Couture, ?The Importance of Being Agust?n Lara: Cursiler?a, Machismo, and Modernity,? Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 20 (2001): 72; Monsivi?s, Bolero: A History,? 179. 370 ?Las pelonas y el tejano,? Omega, July 26, 1924, p. 1, 3. 125 two other young women and dragged them into the showers of the medical school, where they were washed and shaved.371 For months afterwards the aggression towards the pelonas continued in newspaper articles and letters from readers, as well as on the city streets. Others, however, condemned the attack on the pelonas. Rivero y Mart?nez considered the act a barbarity.372 Signs appeared in bus windows with assurances like ?Come aboard, peloncitas,? ?Here we protect the pelonas,? and ?Pelonas: we give them safety.? A musician even composed a danz?n in their honor entitled ?Pro-pelonas.?373 The attacks on the pelonas revealed the tension around modern forms of self- presentation. In addition, the attacks reflected the sense of entitlement that well-to-do male youths felt regarding boundaries of class, race, and gender. On the one hand, the middle-class students might have been expressing anger over modern femininity by attacking more vulnerable women. On the other, they could have felt that modern styles were only appropriate for a higher class and lighter complexion. In 1929, a newspaper commentator criticized darker-skinned women appropriating styles supposedly reserved for lighter-skinned women. He complained that ?at times the skin is dark [but] the stockings are not black.?374 The consumer market?s non- 371 See Anne Rubenstein, ?The War on Las Pelonas: Modern Women and Their Enemies, Mexico City, 1924,? in Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico, eds. Jocelyn Olcott, Mary Kay Vaughan, and Gabriela Cano (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 57-80. See also Rivero y Mart?nez, vol. 1, 436 (July 1924). 372 Rivero y Mart?nez, vol. 1, 436 (July 1924). 373 See De los Reyes, Cine y Sociedad, 1896-1930, 294. See also Jacobo Dalevuelta, ?La pelonas dispuestas a defenderse con energ?a,? El Universal, July 22, 1924, p. 1; ?Las pelonas protegidas por guardias estudiantiles,? El Universal, July 25, 1924, p. 1. 374 ?La moda agente de prostituci?n,? El Hombre Libre, October 2, 1929, p. 4. 126 discriminating availability offered consumers the opportunity to challenge Mexico City?s longstanding class and racial markers. While cartoonists depicted the chica moderna as a mannish woman inverting gender norms, male vanity turned men into effeminate dandies.375 In the 1920s, the male type known by the term fif? (dandy) became a standard character in cartoons, as well as the theater. In a satirical column from 1921, entitled ?Death of the Boulevard Stroller,? S?nchez Filmador described the fif? as the contemporary version of the nineteenth-century dandy (lagartijo) or flane?r. The contemporary fif? ogled women, while standing in front of the fashionable El Globo caf?. Showing off clean nails and thin eyebrows, the fifi was an effeminate and foolishly vain character.376 In the play C?ndido Cordero, the fif? represents a young generation of middle-class employees who worried solely about their appearance, impressing women, and consuming the latest fads. Postrevolutionary Catholic Defense of Mexican Decency Worries about effeminate and cowardly men concerned the Catholic hierarchy. In 1924, Miguel Palmora y Vizcarra, a leader of the organized Catholic movement, bemoaned the lack of honor among young Catholic men. He accused them of deserting the battlefield! At the First National Eucharist Congress, Palmora y Vizcarra criticized them for not participating in the battle against anticlericalism and popular culture. In his speech, entitled ?The Eucharist as an Essentially Virile 375 For example, see Revista de Revista, August 26, 1926, p. 28. 376 Sanch?z Filmador, ?Muri? el boulevardeo,? Zig Zag, February 24, 1921, p. 43. 127 Sacrament,? Palomar y Vizcarra linked the Catholic faith to manhood: ?I have not come to tell you that men should take Communion because they are men, but that because they take Communion they ought to act like men.?377 Palmora y Vizcarra directed a study center in Mexico City belonging to the Mexican Catholic Youth Association (Asociaci?n Cat?lica de la Juventud Mexicana, or ACJM).378 The association aimed to produce young males who were both good Catholics and good men. The ACJM offered centers where young men could study and discuss social, political, and religious matters.379 The church?s emphasis on youth and on education mirrored similar discourses of the revolutionary state.380 Like state authorities, Palmora y Vizcarra insisted on educating the youth for the good of the nation. A new generation of Catholic men, who extolled virility, duty, and honor, ensured a strong Christian Mexico.381 Anticlericalism in Mexico raised alarm that Catholic men were not taking up the fight against the state in support of the church. According to ACJM scholar Antonio Ruis Facius, worries about the religious convictions of Mexico?s male Catholics surfaced because at the beginning of the twentieth century churches were relatively empty of men. Mexican men shunned attending church because ?it was 377 Curley, ?Catholic Honor and Shame in Revolutionary Mexico,? 3. 378 On the history of the ACJM, see David Espinosa, ??Restoring Christian Social Order?: The Mexican Catholic Youth Association (1913-1932),? The Americas 59/4 (April 2003): 451-474. 379 According to the ACJM?s founder, the French-born Jesuit priest Bernardo Berg?end, an emphasis on youth was needed because the world needed ?well-molded men? and ?only the young can be molded.? Espinosa, ??Restoring Christian Social Order,??454. 380 Patience A. Schell, Church and State Education in Revolutionary Mexico City (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2003). 381 Curley, ?Catholic Honor and Shame in Revolutionary Mexico,? 1. 128 considered not manly.?382 Corridos about state-sponsored religious persecution reflected a concern about the lack of men fighting for the church, with lyrics that asked ?Where are the valiant Christians? Where are the heroic patriots??383. One headline published by the conservative newspaper Omega in 1925 read ?Catholics Must Proceed Like Men. Enough of Feminine Prayers.? Another, from 1933, blazed ?Catholics Get Ready with Virility to Contend in Next Elections.?384 ACJM members were mostly young men under the age of twenty-five drawn from the city?s middle class. The majority were single, salaried office workers.385 Jos? de Le?n Toral was one such active member of the ACJM. After the execution of Padre Miguel Pro in November 1927, Toral became the president of the ACJM branch in Santa Mar?a la Ribera. In 1928, he would be arrested for the assassination of ex-president and president-elect ?lvaro Obreg?n. Toral?s writings express typical concerns that distressed members of the ACJM. Like many other Catholics, Toral was disturbed by political and cultural changes in postrevolutionary Mexican society. Mexico?s revolutionary presidents like Obreg?n and his successor Plutarco Calles sought to secularize Mexico. A modern mass culture threatened to undermine Catholic values. In one of Toral?s many drawings, a soccer player and a nun hold up a broken mantle 382 Antonio Ruis Facius, Instituto Mora, Proyecto de la Palabara, PHO 3/1. Ruis Facius authored several works on the ACJM, including La juventud cat?lica y la revoluci?n mexicana (M?xico, DF: Jus, 1963) and M?jico cristero: Historia de la ACJM 1925-1931 (M?xico, DF: Patria, 1966). 383 ?Corrido persecuci?n religiosa mexicana,? in La revoluci?n mexicana a trav?s de los corridos populares, vol.1, comp. Armando de Mar?a y Campos (M?xico, DF: INHERM, 1962), 406-408. 384 ?Los cat?licos deben proceder como hombres. Basta de ruegos femeniles,? Omega, September 24, 1925, p. 1, 4. ?Los cat?licos se aprestaran virilmente a contender en las pr?ximas elecciones,? Omega, May 3, 1933, p. 1. 385 See Antonio Ru?s Facius, M?jico Cristero: Historia de la ACJM 1925-1931 (M?xico, DF; Patria, 1966). 129 that represents Mexico.386 Toral, an avid soccer player, likely saw himself and the Catholic Church, represented by a nun (likely his mentor Madre Conchita) as attempting to hold the country together. Toral lashed out against the decline in piety among Mexico?s Catholics. Moral weakening, he believed, was the result of cultural changes, especially in regards to fashion. From his prison cell, he wrote letters to family members, his lawyer, and to God in which he complained of the lack of religious convictions in the wake of modern culture.387 He proposed Catholics organize ?family vigils? in their private homes. The night would include praying a rosary, having dinner, individuals taking turns sitting with Jesus, and discussing religious and ?non-sinful? matters. In the chapel or by a piano, individuals could ?sing for Jesus.?388 Toral?s ideal family vigils would privatize the religious practices of modern-day Catholics. Of course, most of Mexico City?s practicing Catholics did not reject modernity or modernization. Pious Catholic women entered the public world of office work, and even served as employees of the iconoclastic state bureaucracy. The church hierarchy supported programs by lay Catholic organizations that used radio and film to spread religious teachings. However, Catholics premised femininity and masculinity on a distinct set of values and on a specific understanding of the body. An individual existed in reference to the larger structure of the family, the church, and the 386 Photo album of the Toral de Le?n family (Private archive of Esperanza de Le?n, Mexico City, Mexico). 387 ?Carta para mis gentes.? Papers of Jos? de Le?n Toral (Private archive of Esperanza de Le?n), folder 1, doc. 4. 388 ?Velaciones familiares.? Papers of Jos? de Le?n Toral (Private archive of Esperanza de Le?n), folder 1, doc. 13. 130 kingdom of God. The monitoring and disciplining of the gaze and speech, as well as controlled and modest movements, expressed and constituted an internal attitude of a pious self. Catholics eagerly emphasized hygiene because a clean and tidy body mirrored the condition of the soul. At the same time, an emphasis on cleanliness needed to be balanced against the sins of vanity and pride. The city?s new fads signified more than vanity. Fashions rehearsed and reenacted changing social and sexual boundaries, however exaggerated. The stereotypical chica moderna and the fif? threatened to destabilize primary gender roles in their exchange of work, marriage, and family life for a life of hedonistic pleasures. For ardent Catholics, new styles of clothing and types of behavior turned women?s bodies into modern spectacles. An author in the added publication Acci?n y Fe complained of female nudity on the streets and even in church.389 Members of the Catholic Ladies? Association condemned parents for allowing their young girls ?to go naked according to current fashion.?390 Archbishop Jos? Mora y del R?o promulgated a circular indicating how women should dress in church.391 According to Rivero y Mart?nez, at the El Esp?ritu Santo Church in the neighborhood of Santa Mar?a la Ribera, the sacristan impeded the entry of women dressed ?a la moda.?392 In a sketch made in prison while awaiting trial for the murder of president-elect ?lvaro Obreg?n, Jos? Toral depicted his young aunt Lola sporting bobbed hair, dangling earrings, and 389 De los Reyes, Cine y Sociedad, 1896-1930, 290. See also ?Notas morales. La moda,? Acci?n y Fe, October 1922, p. 719. 390 ?La moda agente de prostituci?n,? El Hombre Libre, October 2, 1929, p. 1. 391 ?Los cines, el desnudo y la sagrada mitra,? El Universal, August 12, 1922, p. 1 cited in De los Reyes, Cine y Sociedad, 1896-1930, 288. 392 Rivero y Mart?nez, vol.1, 93 (October 1920). 131 high heels. Standing in front of Jesus, Lola attempts to pull her skirt over her knees. Jesus, indicating a few inches with his finger, tells her, ?a little bit longer.?393 The Middle-Class Search for Mexicanidad As new forms of popular culture took hold in Mexico City, Mexican artists, intellectuals, and politicians began to define a nationalist version of Mexico?s post- revolutionary modernity. Formulated by a Mexican elite that included anthropologists, artists, intellectuals, and politicians, indigenismo argued that the roots of a modern Mexican identity could be found in indigenous culture. In the 1920s, the Indian began appearing in the colorful public murals of Diego Rivera and Jos? Clemente Orozco, who emerged at the forefront in constructing a Mexican identity, or mexicanidad.394 Their art circulated among an international audience through exhibits abroad and through the photographs of Manuel ?lvarez Bravo, who earned his living documenting their murals for magazines like Mexican Folkways.395 In his work for the magazine The Rural Teacher (El Maestro rural), ?lvarez Bravo exposed Mexico City?s urban middle class to images of rural life?s peasants and Indians.396 Other magazines, including one Federal District government publication 393 Papers of Jos? de Le?n Toral (private archive of Esperanza de Le?n). 394 See, for example, Desmond Rochfort, ?The Sickle, the Serpent, and the Soil: History, Revolution, Nationhood, and Modernity in the Murals of Diego Rivera, Jos? Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros,? in The Eagle and the Virgin: Nation and Cultural Revolution in Mexico, 1920-1940, eds. Mary Kay Vaughan and Steve Lewis (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 43-57. 395 John Mraz, Looking for Mexico: Modern Visual Culture and National Identity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009), 85. 396 Mraz, Looking for Mexico, 90-91. 132 entitled Nuestra ciudad, used images of campesino and Indians to grace covers and illustrate pages. The monthly periodical Nuestra M?xico, described by the editor Armando Vargas de la Maza as ?exclusively Mexican,? disseminated nationalist art by Manuel ?lvarez Bravo, Manuel Jim?nez, Luis M?rquez, Roberto Montenegro, Jos? Orozco, and Diego Rivera.397 Middle-class capitalinos participated in this process by attending concerts, buying folk art, and wearing appropriated pieces of indigenous clothing. They consumed, and in the process legitimated, the new envisioning of Mexican culture. In 1924, publishers of El Universal newspaper invited the middle-class readership to follow the search for Mexico?s most beautiful and ?authentic? Indian female (india bonita). As Rick L?pez acknowledges, the contest allowed the urban middle class to choose their image of a ?pretty Indian? and in the process set the parameters for the appropriated inclusion of aspects of indigenous culture into Mexico?s modern identity.398 Urban middle-class women eagerly adopted aspects of indigenous culture in their dress. Most famously, the painter Frida Kahlo dressed and painted herself in the garb worn by women from Tehuantepec. Safely distanced in time and space from indigenous cultures, urban middle-class women confidently appropriated Indian markers. Idealization of Indian female beauty as rural and pure could be comfortably consumed, while racist attacks on ?backward? indigenous ways continued. 397 The magazine debuted in March 1932. Joanne Hershfield, Imagining la chica moderna: Woman and Visual Culture in Mexico, 1917-1936 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008), 141 398 Rick A. L?pez, ?The India Bonita Contest of 1921 and the Ethnicization of Mexican National Culture,? Hispanic American Historical Review, 82/2 (May 2002): 293. 133 Other members of the middle class turned to a more conservative nationalism that exalted Mexico?s Hispanic culture, or hispanism. Women dressed in the bright frills of Spanish colonial garb known as the china poblana. Their male counterparts looked to the refined cowboy, or charro. For many white-collar employees, the charro outfit and the horse linked them to the rough-and-tumble maleness of rural Mexico. They paraded down the streets of the capital during various charro festivals.399 In 1933, El Universal newspaper featured a half-page spread of photographs and hailed the charro as Mexico?s ?national symbol.?400 Another feature introduced Antonlin Jim?nez, the Secretary of the National Association of Charros, who worked as a government bureaucrat.401 The National Association of Charros was an extremely conservative and elite organization, but the symbol had a broader appeal. Many middle-class men found themselves in a world increasingly changed and unfamiliar. They feared the increasing militancy of working class as well as economic and political displacement. The charro?s manly arts of horsemanship represented a return to some mythical real manhood undisturbed by modern influences. Moreover, the charro represented a symbol that could withstand modernization that threatened to wipe clear all that was unique and authentic about Mexico. In 1938, the year of the nationalization of Mexico?s oil industry under President C?rdenas, a hat company called on men to 399 ?Asociaci?n Nacional de Charros,? Revista de Revistas, March 16, 1924, p. 5; ?Fiesta charra?, El Universal, February 11, 1927, 2a, p.1; ?Festival de charro,? August 22, 1927, 2a, p.1; ?Fiesta del charro,? El Universal, September 2, 1932, 2a, p. 1, 6; ?D?a del charro,? El Universal, September 15, 1932, 1a, p. 12. 400 ?El charro mexicano como simbolo nacional,? El Universal, September 16, 1933, 4a, p. 3. 401 ?Secretar?a de Asociaci?n Nacional de Charros,? El Universal, September 22, 1936, 2a, p. 2. 134 show their patriotism by donning a charro hat. Men should not succumb to ?exotic fashions? and ?pochismo.?402 A charro hat signified adherence to Mexican customs: ?Use a hat ? be faithful to tradition,? read one advertisement. Moreover, the use of a charro hat represented respectability and regard for traditional gendered behavior. The advertisements asserted that real men with proper gender etiquette wore hats and tipped them upon meeting a woman.403 A group of writers extolled a Mexican masculinity they associated with the rough-and-tumble rural life. Julio Jim?nez Rueda and Francisco Monterde argued for the production of what they called ?virile literature? that they associated with Mariano Azuela?s The Underdogs (Los de abajo). First published in weekly installments in Mexico City?s El Universal Ilustrado newspaper, Azuela?s novel celebrated men on horseback, rural landscapes, and revolutionary violence. Their vision attacked a group of writers known as the Contempor?neos for their alternative view of modern Mexico and and masculinity. Jorge Cuesta, Jos? Gorostiza, Salvador Novo, Gilbert Owen, Carlos Pellicer, Jaime Torres Bodet, and Xavier Villaurrutia supported the production of a modernist aesthetic that rooted Mexican culture in an urban middle-class context that was internationalist and cosmopolitan.404 Their critics denounced modernist literature as effeminate, foreign, and distant from the ?reality of 402 Pocho is a pejorative term used by native-born Mexicans to describe Mexican-Americans who are perceived to have forgotten or rejected their Mexican heritage. Pochismo, in this context, derogatorily referred to those Mexicans who emulated U.S. fashions. ?Pongase a cubierto de suspicacias,? El Universal, February 1, 1938, 1a, p. 5. 403 El Universal, February 15, 1938, p. 8, 2a; El Universal, February 8, 1938, 1a, p. 4. 404 Adriana Zavala, ?Mar?a Izquierdo,? in The Eagle and the Virgin: Nation and Cultural Revolution in Mexico, 1920-1940, eds. Mary Kay Vaughan and Steve Lewis (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 67-79. 135 the Mexican race? and its tragic history.405 Azuela himself lashed out against modernists, accusing them of ?degeneracy? and labeling them nothing more than ?rotting latrines.?406 Conclusion In the 1920s and 1930s, Mexico City?s youth came of age as a culture of popular entertainment and cheap consumer goods enabled new ways of experiencing and imagining the exterior body and its psychical interior of affect and desire. Consumer products and consumption practices offered people not only a shared ?horizon of experience,? but also a powerful physical (embodied) and emotional (psychical) investment with modernity. Modernity required a new consciousness and sensibility that celebrated a subjectivity informed not only by temperance, self- control and constraint, but also by the celebration of pleasure. Gender formed a crucial part of the construction and perceptions of the modern subject, as well as of modernity itself. Young women perhaps experienced the most dramatic change, as they entered educational institutions and the paid workforce in unprecedented numbers. An emphasis on physical activity, along with liberating changes in dress and hairstyle, altered not only the appearance of the female body, but also how women moved through an enlarged public sphere of work and leisure. The critical discourse of woman-as-consumer, and fears over unleashed 405 Ermilio Abreu G?mez, Cl?sicos, rom?nticos, modernos (Mexico City, Ediciones Botas, 1934), 217, quoted in Rub?n Gallo, 241, nn. 20. 406 See Julio Jim?nez Rueda, ?El afeminamiento de la literature mexicana,? El Universal, December 21, 1924, cited in Rub?n Gallo, Mexican Modernity: The Avant-Garde and the Technological Revolution (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), 241, nn. 21. 136 desires, produced a gendered vision of transgression and deviance in Mexico City. For pious Catholics, government officials and urban intellectuals modernity loomed as a threatening aberration to Mexican femininity. Educators added their voice to the competing discourses of politicians, church officials, and product advertisers. Teachers instructed students about hygiene, physical exercise, and new forms of labor that mitigated class and gender lines. In the 1930s, public schools became workshops for a new society based on cross-class unity and freer relationships between the sexes. Politically and sexually awakened in the classrooms, young people learned to inhabit and traverse the inherent tensions of post-revolutionary Mexico. 137 Chapter 5: Men and Women in Vocational, Technical, and Preparatory Education: From the Porfiriato to 1930 Introduction The beginnings of Mexico?s mass consumer market and mass media occurred simultaneously with the post-revolutionary administrations? attempts to democratize access to education while providing opportunities for advancement consistent with goals of national development. Governments opened new public schools to increase accessibility. A shift in policy placed greater emphasis on vocational and technical schools for working- and middle-class students. Administrations widened entry into the National Preparatory School and thus possibilities for university training in professional careers. Educational changes challenged gender and class boundaries. They opened up new opportunities for women. While vocational training in domestic industries allowed women to practice trades from their homes, many women sought preparation in office work that would take them into a traditionally male realm. Although the government wanted to train men in industrial and technical careers, middle-class men preferred options in office work and commerce. Those who saw manual labor as a marker of low status and of the rapidly organizing working class likely differentiated themselves from artisan proprietors, who traditionally self-identified as members of the middle class. Similarly, the widening of the doors to the National Preparatory School, which in turn allowed greater opportunities to enter Mexico?s National University, suggest a deepening of stratification and distinction within the middle 138 class. The inclusion of popular sectors in public education likely intensified a trend among the wealthiest sectors to send their children to private schools. Educating Women of the Middle Class: Training in Domestic Industries The respectable place for middle-class women was in the home. In the Pofiriato, the ideal woman was the ?angel of the house? (angel del hogar), who personified virtue, moral superiority, and maternal sentiment in this private space.407 Work outside the home threatened women with contamination, loss of virtue and family honor. Yet by 1900, newspaper writers were recommending that women of the middle class work in order to mitigate the effects of the nation?s economic instability.408 Reformers also urged middle-class families to educate their daughters to reduce their precarious financial state when orphaned or widowed. Teaching provided one of the few respectable and sought-after forms of employment in the late nineteenth century. Middle-class women flocked to teachers colleges in order to find work in the expanding primary education system. Mexico City?s Normal School for Female Teachers (Escuela Normal para Profesoras) was inaugurated in February 1890 and within five years a huge demand forced directors to close registration early due to the lack of space.409 Other women studied music as a 407 William E. French, ?Prostitutes and Guardian Angels: Women, Work, and the Family in Porfirian Mexico,? Hispanic American Historical Review 72/4 (November 1992): 529-553. 408 A series of national economic crises led many middle-class families to face dire financial difficulties. ?Las mujeres de la clase media deben trabajar,? El Imparcial, February 1900, p.1, cited in Eugenio Sancho Riba, ?Las condiciones econ?micas en los ultimos a?os del porfiriato y la clase media,? Revista de Historia 5/9-10 (1980): 12. 409 Luz Elena Galv?n, La educaci?n superior de la mujer en M?xico: 1876-1940 (M?xico, DF: CIESAS, 1985), 54. 139 means to make a living. Money earned as a piano teacher could help a woman leave a bad economic situation or supplement her family?s income, and even allow her a form of social mobility.410 The supply of teachers was matched by a demand from parents eager for their daughters to attend school. Petitioning President D?az, parents sought work in Mexico City in order for their daughters to continue their music lessons. Parents already residing in the capital sought a ?second? job to pay for their daughters? higher education.411 Fearing that their daughters might end up in disreputable factory work, families sought to place girls in vocational schools. Opened in 1872, the School of Arts and Trades for Women (Escuela de Artes y Oficios para Mujeres) offered courses in artificial flowermaking, cooking, domestic economy, embroidery, sewing, and, increasingly at the turn of century, commercial and clerical work. According to Mary Kay Vaughan, in the later half of the nineteenth century, the increase in vocational school enrollments overall in Mexico was due to the influx of women.412 Although vocational schools were originally intended for poor women, the institutions quickly came to serve primarily the middle strata. In 1902, the director of the School of Arts and Trades for Women noted that offerings attracted families of the middle class. She noted that the working class had not wanted to enjoy the benefits the school offered. On the other hand, numerous families of the middle class 410 Galv?n, La educaci?n superior de la mujer en M?xico, 16-17. 411 Galv?n, La educaci?n superior de la mujer en M?xico, 124-127. 412 Vaughan, State, Education, and Social Class, 69. 140 hastened to take the opportunity to learn practical skills of some manual industry.413 Many middle-class young women likely learned trades that they could practice from home like sewing and related crafts. The school later changed its name to the Arts and Trades School for Young Ladies (Escuela de Artes y Oficios para Se?oritas) and included classes on cooking, flower arranging, clothing design, and hairdressing.414 The Corregidora de Quer?taro School of Industrial Art (Escuela de Arte Industrial Corregidora de Quer?taro), inaugurated for the 1910 centennial celebrations, offered sewing and batik classes to prepare single young women or housewives to become economically independent, again working from their homes.415 In 1914, in the midst of the Revolution, a Department of Public Education report on vocational schools listed courses in domestic economy, embroidery, fashion, hatmaking, lacemaking, ornamentation, and sewing undergarments.416 The report defined the objective of female vocational schools as working toward the betterment of the middle and working classes. Along with young girls, women who had been widowed or abandoned, or caught in the economic crisis of the Revolution, sought out these courses to learn income-earning skills.417 413 ?Informe relativo ? la Escuela Nacional de Artes y Oficios Para Mujeres, durante el a?o de 1902,? Bolet?n de Instrucci?n P?blica, January 20, 1903, p. 481-483. 414 Patience A. Schell, Church and State Education in Revolutionary Mexico City (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2003), 52-53. 415 Schell, Church and State Education in Revolutionary Mexico City, 53, 126-127. See also Vaughan, The State, Education, and Social Class in Mexico; Susie S. Porter, Working Women in Mexico City: Public Discourses and Material Conditions, 1879-1931 (Tucson: University of Arizon Press, 2003), 165-166. 416 Las Escuelas que Preparan Hombres ?tiles para la Patria y la Familia. Guia para los Alumnos y para sus padres y tutores (M?xico, DF: Dept de Educaci?n P?blica y Bellas Artes, 1914), 80. 417 Las Escuelas, 85. 141 The Gabriela Mistral School of Domestic Arts (Escuela Hogar Gabriela Mistral), founded in 1922 on Sadi Carnot Street served women of the neighborhoods of Guerrero, Santa Mar?a la Ribera, and San Rafael, colonias that after the Revolution mixed middle-class families with those of more popular origin and identification.418 The school?s objective was to prepare the woman for care of the home, as well as to give them a means to earn a living.419 In 1922, a Department of Public Education (SEP) bulletin recorded an enrollment of 1,464 students, with a 68 percent graduation rate. The popularity of the school led officials to consider opening up another locale in Santa Mar?a la Ribera.420 Over the next few years, businessmen came to give talks on how women could open their own small businesses.421 The school also became more supportive of women as professionals. The Industrial School for Young Women Malinalxochitl (Escuela Industrial para Se?oritas Malinalxochit) opened in 1926. The institution aimed to teach small domestic industries in order to instill thrift and economic security. According to the school?s pamphlet, the students? need for vocational skills depended upon their socio- economic class. On the one hand, the school served children who could not continue their studies past primary school as their help was needed in the home. On the other hand, potential students included the female employee who wanted to ?prepare 418 ?La Escuela Hogar ?Gabriela Mistral,? Bolet?n de Secretar?a de la Educaci?n P?blica, May 1, 1922, 244, AHCM. 419 ?Escuela de Hogar ?Gabriela Mistral,? El Dem?crata, January 17, 1922, in Bolet?n de Secretar?a de la Educaci?n P?blica, May 1, 1922, 240, AHCM. See also Patience A. Schell, Church and State Education in Revolutionary Mexico City (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2003), 54. 420 Escuela Industrial "Gabriela Mistral," Tomo VIII, No. 15 (M?xico, DF: SEP, 1926), CONDUMEX, Misc. Educaci?n P?blica 15, 379.08.72 V.A. 421 Schell, Church and State Education in Revolutionary Mexico City, 54. 142 herself against unemployment, readjustments, and decrease in pay.? In addition, the courses also taught administration of the home to new brides. According to school officials, these women attended not out of necessity but rather as a way for them to occupy their time or earn a little extra money to buy small luxury items.422 By 1926, two other schools focused on housekeeping. The Sor Juana In?s de la Cruz School of Domestic Arts (Escuela Hogar Sor Juana In?s de la Cruz) trained housewives to operate a home in an orderly, hygienic, and rational manner.423 The National School of Domestic Instruction (Escuela Nacional de Ense?anza Dom?stica) explicitly stated its objectives as preparing young women for the ?high mission? of taking care of the home. The school hoped to ?develop cultured women, perfect mothers and wives? who would contribute to Mexico?s moral and material progress. Courses dealt with efficiency in the home through lessons on the proper distribution of money, time, and work. A class called the Ideal House (Casa ideal) dealt with disinfection, heating, natural and artificial lighting, sewage, and water. Students also learned about interior decoration and the proper use and care of carpets and objects. These courses catered to women who could devote their time exclusively to the running of the home. However, school officials acknowledged the need among some women to learn small craft skills that they could perform from the home in order to supplement the family income. Thus, the school offered lessons in fashion, hatmaking, linendraping, and machine embroidery. Extra curricular activities 422 Folleto de la Escuela Industrial para Se?oritas ?Malinalxochitl,? Tomo VII, No. 15 (M?xico, DF: SEP, 1926), CONDUMEX, Misc. Educaci?n P?blica 15, 379.08.72 V.A. 423 Schell, Church and State Education in Revolutionary Mexico City, 55. 143 included visits to commercial establishments, public markets, and small industries to learn how to sell their wares to the public.424 In the 1920s, advice on homemaking and motherhood moved to the airwaves, as Mexican governments discovered the potential of the radio. Ageeth Sluis describes the new aural medium as the perfect symbol of post-revolutionary modernity. For the first time, the government was able to simultaneously reach thousands of citizens in the private domain of their homes. Moreover, the ??disembodied voice? of the radio could assume a multiplicity of personae which were equally authoritative and seductive, yet always personal.?425 In late 1924, the Department of Education (Secretar?a de la Educaci?n P?blica, or SEP) founded the radio station CZE with the purpose of transmitting cultural information.426 Renamed XFX in 1928, the station?s key demographic were women. By 1929, 26 programs were aimed exclusively at women. The programs totaled 52 hours and represented half of the yearly airtime. The focus on women may have been based on who had the most access to the radio. According to studies by the SEP, urban housewives represented the largest group of radio listeners.427 The XFX's radio programming identified the revolutionary woman as first and 424 In 1922, the school registered 438 day students and 358 night students. The courses cost five pesos each. At night, the school offered quick intensive courses for women in the service industry. Unfortunately, the school?s statistics do not reveal how many of the students sought training small industries. Folleto de la Escuela Nacional de Ense?anza Dom?stica, Tomo VII, No. 1 (M?xico, DF: SEP, 1925), CONDUMEX, Misc. Educaci?n P?blica 15, 379.08.72 V.A. See also Mary Kay Vaughan, ?Education and Class in the Mexican Revolution,? Latin American Perspectives 5/2 (Summer 1975): 17-33; Vaughan, State, Education, and Social Class. 425 Ageeth Sluis, ?Revolution and the Rhetoric of Representation: Gender Construction in Mexican Radio and Cinema, 1920-1949? (MA thesis, University of Wyoming, 1997), 80. 426 Sluis, ?Revolution and the Rhetoric of Representation,? 33. 427 Sluis, ?Revolution and the Rhetoric of Representation,? 38-39. 144 foremost a mother and homemaker whose traditional roles needed modernizing. A program called La Hora del Hogar, which aired weekdays for two hours at midday, featured lessons on home economics and advice on better housekeeping and hygiene. In 1930, roughly 3,000 housewives actively listened to XFX. By 1932, La Hora del Hogar filled 86 percent of the station?s annual airtime hours. Enriqueta P. de Vega from the School of Arts and Trades lectured on beauty tips, maintaining a hygienic home, meal preparation, and small craft industries.428 Other female instructors warned mothers of the consequences of lax childrearing that would cause their children to ?fall prey to all the pernicious influences of the street, day-dreaming, and conversations with maids.?429 La Hora del Hogar?s references to maids, as well as entire segments devoted to the management of servants, indicate an intended middle- and upper-class audience. While discourses of family and housekeeping were intended for all mothers, women belonging to the middle and upper classes had both money and time to achieve the radio program?s ideal image of motherhood. Moreover, in the 1920s, radio sets were still limited to well-off homes. Ageeth Sleuth points out that SEP programs sharpened distinctions between women on the basis of class, rather than unifying them under a revolutionary or feminist banner.430 Thus, women of the middle class differentiated themselves from working-class women through their formal education in the latest scientific childrearing techniques, their (or their 428 Bolet?n de Secretar?a de la Educaci?n de SEP [BSEP], Vol. 6, No. 2, November 1927, p. 366, Archivo Hist?rico de la Secretar?a de Educaci?n P?blica [AHSEP]. 429 Sluis, ?Revolution and the Rhetoric of Representation,? 42. 430 Sluis, ?Revolution and the Rhetoric of Representation,? 43. 145 servants?) implementation of hygienic standards, and their consumption of products intended to fortify their children. Consumer advertising and women?s magazines may have strengthened not only the class but also racial dimensions of ideal modern motherhood. A 1930 cover of El Hogar magazine features a light-skinned mother holding a baby as she sports a bobbed haircut and a fashionable dress is one example among many.431 Industrial and Technical Schools for Men Emphasizing the need for skilled manual labor for national development, Mexico?s education policymakers promoted training in the skilled trades, industrial work, and technical careers throughout the 1920s. During the administration of President ?lavaro Obreg?n (1920-1924), Education Minister Jos? Vasconcelos expressed the need to improve the skills, and consequently the remuneration, of small and medium producers, as well as artisans. Vasconcelos? educational and cultural programs aimed ?to construct a large civilized and nationalistic class.? This class would defend the nation against external threats and reconcile the country?s antagonisms following a decade of revolutionary violence.?432 Vasconcelos hoped that teachers would aid the nation-building effort by inspiring in youth a work ethic, a 431 El Hogar, March 5, 1930. 432 Victor D?az Arciniega, Querella por la cultura ?revolucionaria? (1925), (M?xico, DF: Fondo de Cultura Ec?nomica, 1989), 33-34. 146 sense of honor, and willingness to take action. They would instill in young boys the necessary courage, strenth, and vigour for nation?s future grandeur.433 The SEP?s message heartened master craftsmen like J. S?nchez Aguilar, president of the Mutual Aid Society of Watchmakers, Jewelers, and Engravers. In a telegram to President Obreg?n in February 1922, S?nchez Aguilar, sought professional training in these crafts that he claimed were in a lamentable state of backwardness and abandonment. Imported better-made and cheaper goods exacerbated the situation.434 In 1924, S?nchez Aguilar formally petitioned the government for a vocational school to serve the three trades represented by his mutual aid society.435 He argued that skilled training would ensure that artisans did not get left behind in the march toward progress. Formal education would give artisan trades a more professional character, raising the social, and possibly economic, status of the craft. There is no indication that the SEP acted on his request. In 1921, Vaconcelos created the Department of Technical Instruction. The department administered old and new vocational and technical schools.436 These included the older Escuela Primaria Industrial Jos? Mar?a Chavez, which provided a worker?s diploma (obrero), the Escuela Nacional Primaria Vasco de Quiroga for 433 Jos? Vasconcelos, El maestro, vol.1, 1921, 5-9. See also Patience Schell, ?Nationalizing Children Through Schools and Hygiene: Porfirian and Revolutionary Mexico City,? The Americas 60/4 (April 2004): 559-587. 434 AGN, O-C, vol. 207, exp. 711-R-20, fs: 2, February 20, 1922. S?nchez Aguilar sent a follow-up telegram five days later. AGN, O-C, vol. 207, exp. 711-R-18, fs: 4, February 25, 1925. 435 AGN, O-C, vol. 207, exp. 711-R-18, fs: 3, September 20, 1924. They were still awaiting a response in March according to a telegram sent by S?nchez Aguilar. See AGN, O-C, vol. 207, exp. 711-R-18, fs: 4, March 5, 1925. Another formal letter requesting a school was sent later that month. See AGN, O- C, vol. 207, exp. 711-R-18, fs: 1, March 20, 1925. 436 Claude Fell, Jos? Vasconcelos: los a?os del ?guila, 1920-1925 (M?xico, DF: UNAM, 1989), 195. 147 children of artisans, and the Escuela de Artes y Oficios. The SEP renamed the latter the Escuela de Ingenieros Mecanicos y Electricistas to train auto mechanics, electricians, electrical and mechanical engeineers, and machinists.437 It also created the Instituto T?cnico Industrial and the Escuela T?cnica Nacional de Maestros Constructores where boys and young men trained as carpenters, blacksmiths, electricians, and mechanics through practical education and hands-on experience. The SEP promoted technical and industrial careers as respectable options for middle-class men. It is possible that it had some success among youth from artisan families that had claimed middle-class status, but most students came from more humble backgrounds.438 Youth of the white-collar middle class or with middle-class aspirations were not well represented. The transition in occupational structure and the rapid political organization of the working class likely heightened a middle-class disdain for manual labor. Many skilled artisans, who were both craftsmen and entrepreneurs, had claimed middle- class identity, but many in this group were sidelined or proletarianized by industrialization. At the same time, white-collar training and employment opportunities widened for the sons of artisans.439 Manual labor came to be associated with factory labor. Other artisans emerged as leaders of the workers? movement fostering and celebrating a new militant working-class consciousness.440 Men in the 437 Charles Nash Myers, Education and National Development in Mexico (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1965), 97. 438 Las Escuelas, 62. 439 Las Escuelas, 91. 440 See John Lear, Workers, Neighbors, and Citizens: The Revolution in Mexico City (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001). 148 skilled trades often identified themselves through their political affiliations as working class. Streetcar drivers and mechanics, for example, were active members of working-class anarchist organizations. Technical schools like the School of Mechanical Engineers and Electricians possibly came to serve newly formed trade unions. As a result, manual labor became largely identified with the working class. Men with middle-class pretensions scorned such labor. David Parker finds that in early twentieth-century Lima, white-collar workers (empleados) clearly distinguished themselves from manual workers (obreros). For office employees, nonmanual labor was a defining quality of the gente decente, the self-proclaimed respectable people of the middle class.441 Similarly, in Mexico City, many members of the middle class rushed to become office employees, particularly in the growing government bureaucracy. Already in 1914, the Primary Industrial School Jos? Mar?a Chavez reported a low turn out of students, which administrators attributed to the majority of young people aspiring to professional careers. These observations support the complaints published in the La Clase media newspaper about young people not entering into workshops. Instead, they were turning to office work. Thus, it is not surprising that a writer in the conservative newspaper Omega responded negatively in 1923 to presidential candidate Calles? promotion of vocation and technical training. The writer did not believe a man with intelligence could dedicate himself to ?making shoes, metalwork, or grabbing the pickaxe or hand of the 441 David S. Parker, ? White-Collar Lima, 1910-1929: Commercial Employees and the Rise of the Peruvian Middle Class,? Hispanic American Historical Review 72/1 (February 1992): 47-72. 149 plough.? Poetically, he insisted that even in the humblest of souls burned the ambition to rise past their parents in the social scale. He continued, ?The people reason like this: I was carpenter, and I have lived in misery, and have nothing. You, that are my son, will have a career. You will be a lawyer, for example.? How, he wondered, could Calles, who had once been a schoolteacher, turn away eager young students from the classroom and turn them into ?an American proletariat.?442 Indeed, if the government?s strategy prevailed, these men would feel oppressed by society, defrauded in their salaries, and offended by injustices, and convert into agitating ?agrarianists and Bolsheviks.?443 The Education of the Middle-Class Employee: Men and Women Thus, the 1920s witnessed the proliferation of a trend begun in the Porfiriato, in which middle-class status became increasingly associated with white-collar employment. Business and clerical schools fed the demand for literate and competent office workers in private companies and in the increasingly complex governmental bureaucracy. A 1904 article in the Diario del Hogar newspaper remarked that the Secretaria de Instrucci?n P?blica had to close enrollment in the Escuela Nacional de Comercio early that year due to the large number of students.444 Census material from the late Porfirian period traces the growth of white- collar employment. New professions appeared in the census, including administrative 442 ?El General Calles pertenece al proletariado intelectual,? Omega, April 7, 1923, p. 1. 443 ?El General Calles pertenece al proletariado intelectual,? Omega, April 7, 1923, p. 1. 444 ?Una injusta disposici?n en la Escuela Nacional de Comercio,? Diario del Hogar, cited in Bolet?n de Instrucci?n P?blica, January 30, 1904, 100-101. 150 employees in 1900, and bookkeepers, clerks (empleados particulares), contractors (contratistas), and typists in 1910.445 The number of shorthand writers also increased considerably between 1890 and 1910, from 26 to 419. The largest number worked under the category of public employees (empleados p?blicos). Although exaggerating, Porfirian writer Francisco Bulnes claimed that before D?az?s downfall, seventy percent of the middle class depended on the state for employment.446 Critics like Bulnes lamented the middle-class reliance on public employment that caused empleomania. Pointing to what he called the Mexican ?bourgeoisie,? Bulnes blamed them for them being ?the daughter of the state payroll and not of an industrial revolution.?447 Graduates entered willingly into an inert and dependent relationship with their state employer. They shunned being entrepreneurs and nurturing the progressive and innovative spirit natural to the middle class. Educational reformers singled out secondary school curriculum as too theoretical: it neither taught practical skills nor bolstered the entrepreneurial spirit.448 In a 1907 report on Secondary Instruction, Francisco V?zquez G?mez argued that the National Preparatory School (Escuela Nacional Preparatoria) reduced students to merely 445 In 1890 and 1900, the occupation labeled private employees (empleados particulares) appears in the general category of ?diverse occupations,? which included domestic servants and laundresses. In 1910, the occupation appears under ?General designations without indication of a determined profession.? This grouping included accountants, contractors, mechanics, and servants. Donald Keesing argues that in 1895 the title probably referred mainly to high-ranking service personnel within a landed proprietor?s household. However, by 1910 the title had become a euphemism for a general type of clerk. Donald B. Keesing, ?Structural Change Early in Development: Mexico?s Changing Industrial and Occupational Structure from 1895-1950,? The Journal of Economic History 29/4 (December 1969): 716-738. 446 Moises Gonz?lez Navarro, ?El Porfiriato: La vida social,? vol. 4, ed. 1, in Historia Moderna de M?xico, ed. Daniel Cos?o Villegas (M?xico, DF: Editorial Hermes, 1957), 388-389. 447 Gonz?lez Navarro, ?El Porfiriato: La vida social,? 388. 448 Las Escuelas, 91. 151 preparing for exams. They graduated with scientific knowledge, but without the development of other kinds of mental faculties and without a good work ethic. He quoted another critic who complained that ?very ill prepared? graduates took places in public offices ?incapable of doing anything on their own.?449 On the same grounds, a report on the Industrial School Jos? Mar?a Chavez argued for the superiority of entrepreneurial jobs over government or private office employment. Accordingly, small entrepreneurs like bosses of workshops or small business owners fared better than government employees who suffered from ?shaky? salaries and job-threatening political fluctuations.450 These were the same observations and complaints presidential candidate Plutarco El?as Calles made in 1923. Yet, in the 1920s, both the state and private sector responded to a growing demand for training in office work and commerce. The SEP opened several business schools. Created in 1922, the Doctor Mora Business School had 187 day students and 631 night students taking classes in accounting and shorthand typing. The school?s building quickly became too small to serve student demand.451 A year later, the government established a Technical School of Shorthand Typing (Escuela T?cnica de Taquimeca?grafos).452 The School of Commerce and Administration (Escuela Superior de Comercio y Administraci?n) had 1,013 students in 1922. In response to growing numbers of private academies and the call for more practical training, the 449 Galv?n, La educaci?n superior de la mujer en M?xico, 45-46. In a similar effort to stimulate personal initiative, educators argued for instituting ball sports like pelota and baseball in the place of monotonous movements of Swedish gymnastics that supposedly stifled a child?s imagination and individuality. 450 Escuela Industrial Jos? Mar?a Chavez, Bolet?n de SEP, May 1, 1922, ASEP. 451 Escuela Comercial Doctor Mora, Bolet?n de SEP, May 1, 1922, 94, ASEP. 452 Escuela T?cnica de Taquimecan?grafos, Bolet?n de SEP, January 1, 1923, 244, ASEP. 152 School of Commerce and Administration revised its curriculum to provide modern methods of teaching and more hands-on experience. For example, the school established an accounting class, which served to simulate a true business office.453 In a 1926 report, the SEP described the school?s objective as animating businessmen with a ?practical spirit.?454 Private academies opened to meet growing demand. In the colonia of Santa Mar?a la Ribera, the Central School of Mexico (Escuela Central de M?xico) offered shorthand and other business skills. Many of the school?s courses offered quick acquisition of requisite skills and afternoon and evening class for those already working.455 Short-term courses offered a means to enter the job market in a haste, if a family?s financial circumstances suddenly deteriorated. For example, Santa Mar?a resident Jos? Toral, who wished to pursue a career in art, took a short course in business when the family?s financial difficulties required him to earn an income quickly. Upon graduation, he found employment in the office of the German-owned Geber Company.456 Men who found office work had to confront the rapid and forceful entry of women into this formerly masculine domain. Their entry began before the revolution and responded to changes in office technology and technique: particularly the introduction of the typewriter and shorthand. In order to avoid the factory work that 453 Escuela Superior de Comercio y Administraci?n, Bolet?n de SEP, May 1, 1922, 93, ASEP. 454 Folleto de la Escuela Superior de Comercio y Administraci?n, Tomo VIII, No.1 (M?xico, DF: SEP, 1926), CONDUMEX, Misc. Educaci?n P?blica 15, 379.08.72 V.A. 455 Galv?n, La educaci?n superior de la mujer en M?xico, 124-127. 456 Jes?s de Le?n Toral, Recuerdos y comentarios sueltos de mi familia (M?xico, DF: Centro de Estudios Hist?ricos Jos? de Le?n Toral, A.C, n.d.), 77. 153 was considered disreputable for honorable daughters, young women from artisan, lower middle-class, and working-class families flocked to schools to learn secretarial skills. In 1902, the Miguel Lerdo de Tejada School for women opened to offer training for careers in commerce, domestic economy, and graphic arts. In a 1904 speech, the school?s director, Raquel Santoyo, boasted that the school?s female students had within several months gained the necessary knowledge to accept a position in a variety of companies, offices, and shops. Santoyo defended female education against critics who linked female entry into the labor force to an undignified feminism that masculinized women. Santoyo was certain that a woman could work ?without falling into the ridiculous exaggerations of feminism that converts her into a hybrid.?457 Santoyo was not alone in her defense of female students. In 1908, La Clase media newspaper lauded young middle-class women who had dedicated themselves to learning accounting, English, shorthand, typing, and business correspondence. He noted that these women?s studies came out of an eagerness to be useful to their families as well as find something that would give them relative independence. Perhaps as a consequence of the lack of respect for women workers, the author added that male employees should show the requisite ?proverbial gallantry of the Latin race? to their female colleagues.458 With material hardship and loss of life wrought by the Revolution and economic instability in the 1920s, many middle-class families encouraged their 457 Informe relativo a la escuela Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, Bolet?n de Instrucci?n P?blica, January 30, 1904, 860-868. 458 ?Pobres empleados,? La Clase media, June 1, 1908, p.3. 154 daughters to seek training for a workspace they considered reputable.459 In 1922, an El Universal newspaper article entitled ?Women Who Work? referred to a radical revolution in female education. Referencing the changing educational norms for women, the writer praised girls who had taken the opportunity to obtain ?honest and lucrative means of work.? As a result, the so-called ?pretty sex? held a considerable number of positions in commercial establishments and offices.460 The father of Andr?s Iduarte, a lawyer who refused to secure the family's fortune by accepting bribes, acknowledged that some day his daughters might have to earn a living. With this in mind, the daughters stopped studying the piano and took courses in typewriting and bookkeeping.461 As a young woman in 1925, the famed painter Frida Kahlo studied shorthand and typing at Oliver Academy to better her chances of finding a part-time job while studying at the National Preparatory School. Kahlo?s family needed extra income and her possible employment at the Ministry of Education library promised four pesos a day. In a letter to her boyfriend at the time, Kahlo noted that she had to learn something about ?typing and charm.?462 Despite government hopes to privilege entrepreneurial, practical, and industrial skills, both men and women favored public employment. Such work was respectable and available, despite the fragility of job security and wages particularly 459 See Patience A. Schell, Church and State Education in Revolutionary Mexico City (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2003). See also Porter, ?Espacios burocr?ticos.? 460 ?Las mujeres que trabajan,? El Universal, February 3, 1922 in Bolet?n de Secretar?a de la Educaci?n P?blica, May 1, 1922, 246, AHCM. 461 Andr?s Iduarte, Ni?o: Child of the Mexican Revolution, trans. James F. Shearer (New York: Praeger, 1971), 124 -125. 462 Hayden Herrera, Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo (New York: Harper Perennial, 2002), 42-43. 155 in the early 1920s. Overall, the number of public employees in the Federal District increased rapidly, from 15,000 in 1921 to 47,000 in 1930, an increase of over 200 percent.463 The 1930 census reported that public employees represented almost four percent of the economically active population in the Federal District.464 Thirteen percent or 6,000 of these employees were women.465 Both men and women filled not only clerical jobs but also worked as professionals and technicians. Women in particular worked in the fields of education, social work, and health. Revolution in the Classroom: The National Preparatory School Students who wanted to enter various graduate and professional schools at the National University first passed through the National Preparatory School (Escuela Nacional Preparatoria, or ENP). Founded by Gabino Barreda in 1867, the school reflected the ideological orientation of the time with its heavily positivist curriculum. From the capital and surrounding provinces, sons of upper-class professionals and the elite entered the hallowed halls of the ENP. In his autobiography, Andr?s Osuna characterized the ENP as an elitist institution, different from the normal schools that were the ?destinations for the humble children of the middle class.? Osuna believed that class differences became evident in revolutionary participation. He claimed that 463 My findings of the 1930 census indicate 15,031 in 1921 and 46,977 in 1930. See M?xico, Secretar?a de Fomento, Oficina Tipogr?fica, Censo de Poblaci?n 1930. 464 Susie S. Porter, ?Espacios burocr?ticos, normas de feminidad e identidad de la clase media en M?xico durante la d?cada de 1930,? in Orden social e identidad de g?nero M?xico, siglos XIX y XX, eds. Mar?a Teresa Fern?ndez Aceves, et al. (M?xico, DF: CIESAS, 2006), 193. 465 M?xico, Secretar?a de Fomento, Oficina Tipogr?fica, Censo de Poblaci?n 1921; M?xico, Secretar?a de Fomento, Oficina Tipogr?fica, Censo de Poblaci?n 1930. Susie Porter finds that between 1921 and 1930 the number of empleadas increased 2,000 percent while male employees increased 300 percent. Susie S. Porter, ?Espacios burocr?ticos,? 189-213. 156 the contingent of participants from the normal schools was much greater than at the ENP. For him, the numbers proved that the institution was the destination of privileged classes who did not care about the betterment of society.466 To a degree, his assessment reflected post-revolutionary biases that identified the Porfiriato with a privileged elite. Among others, Jos? Vasconcelos had graduated from the EPN in the Porfiriato. He was the son of a provincial customs official. He entered the revolution and became the first minister of the Secretary of Public Education (Secretar?a de la Educaci?n P?blica, or SEP). In the early 1920s, ENP admissions became more democratic under the leadership of Vicente Lombardo Toledano, son of a middling Italian immigrant merchant family from the Sierra Norte de Puebla who became a Marxist and would emerge as Mexico?s top labor leader in the 1930s. This initiative had the support of Jos? Vasconcelos who altered the ENP curriculum and that of the feeder secondary schools.467 Enrollments in secondary schools grew rapidly. In 1923, 27 percent of students who finished primary school in the Federal District passed on to secondary schools and then to the ENP. The figure rose to 35 percent in 1925 and to 46 percent in 1928.468 Andr?s Iduarte who entered the ENP in 1922 came into contact for the first time with boys of the lower classes. His new classmates no longer resembled his upper-class colleagues at his secondary school, the Colegio Mexicano. Instead, they 466 Andr?s Osuna, quoted in Engracia Loyo, Gobiernos revolucionarios y educaci?n popular en M?xico, 1911-1928 (M?xico, DF: Colegio de M?xico, 1999), 52 and p. 52, fn. 86. 467 Loyo, Gobiernos revolucionarios y educaci?n popular en M?xico, 154. 468 Loyo, Gobiernos revolucionarios y educaci?n popular en M?xico, 234. 157 were ?a motley, heterogeneous crew, of all extractions and odors.? Iduarte winced at the odor of his fellow students, many of who were poor boys who rarely bathed. Yet, even city boys who had a house with a bathroom took few baths, according to Iduarte.469 Through his new companions, Iduarte began to know a side of Mexico City he had not seen, the tenements of Loreto, Pervalvillo, and La Bolsa.470 The ENP had admitted women slowly. The first woman enrolled in the ENP in 1882, fifteen years after the institution?s opening. A second female student entered eight years later. As young women in higher learning, both had to fight prejudices.471 Clementina Batalla de Bassols remembers entering the ENP with forty other women in 1909. By the 1920s, there were three girls in every class. In the 1930s, 16 percent of the class population was female.472 The female students represented a range of social classes, with some very ?modest girls of the lower bourgeoisie,? along with daughters of intellectuals.473 According to Sara Cantu, some teachers opposed their admission. They argued that ?this is not a place for a girl and they should go wash dishes and darn socks.?474 469 Iduarte, Ni?o: Child of the Mexican Revolution, 127. 470 Iduarte, Ni?o: Child of the Mexican Revolution, 132. 471 In 1882, the first female student Matilde Montoya entered the ENP to study medicine. Rosario Mart?nez followed eight years. See Mariana Romo Pati?o, Las modernas: Preparatorias de la generaci?n de los viente, VHS (M?xico, DF: UNAM, 1996). 472 In the 1920s, 809 women entered the ENP. The number increased dramatically in the 1940s with 9,123 women. Many of the women attended the ENP?s night courses. In 1929, 96 women were enrolled in day school and 108 were enrolled in night school. In order to attend night school the student had to prove that she worked during the day. 473 Clementina Batalla de Bassols, Instituto Mora, Proyecto de Histori? Oral, PHO 4/13. 474 Mariana Romo Pati?o, Las modernas: Preparatorias de la generaci?n de los viente, VHS (M?xico, DF: UNAM, 1996). 158 Regarded as mentally strong but physically weak, women students could find relief in the consumer market. In 1922, an advertisement for Lydia E. Pinkham vegetable compound depicted a young woman studying at home accompanied by the warning that girls between the ages of twelve and twenty-three must take care of their ?delicate feminine organism.?475 In 1924, the same vegetable mixture promised strength for young women confronting school demands and menstrual pain.476 An ad for Dr. Richard?s vegetable oil pills presented a young girl whose studies caused her to weaken and lose weight. The pills were guaranteed to restore her energy, return color to her face, and help her gain weight.477 Education provided exercise for girls? brains and bodies, as schools offered many female students their first opportunity to become involved in sports. As a student at the ENP in the 1920s, Guillermina Mostalac played on Mexico?s first women?s basketball team. Other students wore bathing suits and bloomers for the first time.478 Women?s new relationship to their bodies in such educational settings intersected with the new bodily expressions promoted in the mass media, consumer culture, and world of entertainment. Physical strength gave women the confidence and stamina to dance the shimmy or Charleston on the city?s dance hall floors. Schools also provided young women a space to express their individuality and seek non-traditional lives. In a school photograph from 1923, Frida Kahlo, dressed in 475 El Universal, May 13, 1922, 2a, p.4. 476 Excelsior, March 18, 1925, 2a, p.7. 477 El Universal, August 5, 1927, 2a, p. 3. 478 Mariana Romo Pati?o, Las modernas: Preparatorias de la generaci?n de los viente, VHS (M?xico, DF: UNAM, 1996). 159 the school uniform, showed off cropped hair in the popular pelona style. Kahlo, who entered the ENP in 1922, was one of 35 female students in a student body of 2,000.479 Her father was a professional photographer and her family lived in Coyoac?n, then at the outskirts of city. She took the tram into town. At school, she belonged to a rebellious clique of seven boys and two girls known as the cachuchas, named for caps they wore. Kahlo?s female classmates considered girls like her rebellious, troublesome, and bohemian-types who discussed the philosophy of Schopenhauer with boys in the school?s hallways. Kahlo found most of the girls at school to be pretentious, or cursi (pitifully sentimental). Irritated by endless gossiping and pettiness, she labeled these girls esquinkles after the hairless Mexican dogs of the same name.480 The National Preparatory School took great measures to appease families? fears concerning the morality of their daughters, most of whom entered the ENP at the age of twelve. Families warned daughters to safeguard their honor. Upon being dropped off at the ENP, Sara Cantu?s father admonished his daughter to ?take care of [her] name, or, in other words, be respectful [and] not screw up.?481 Fearful of these types of warnings, Clementina Batalla Bassols remembered how the girls went to class with great intrepidation of the boys.482 Teachers had girls sit up front to keep a close eye on them. In the hallways, female prefects watched carefully to see that the 479 Hayden Herrera, Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo (New York: Harper Perennial, 2002), 25. 480 Mariana Romo Pati?o, Las modernas: Preparatorias de la generaci?n de los viente. 481 Mariana Romo Pati?o, Las modernas: Preparatorias de la generaci?n de los viente, VHS (M?xico, DF: UNAM, 1996). 482 Clementina Batalla de Bassols, Instituto Mora, Proyecto de Histori? Oral [PHO] 4/13, 17. 160 male students stayed away from their female charges. According to Alfonso Mostalac, boys hardly spoke to the very discreet girls. When they finished class, they went up to the designated female area, where waited between classes or during rest hours. At lunchtime, the doorman would bring a vendor around to the female area to sell sandwiches. Still, some of the boys went to great lengths to find ways to make contact with the girls. Alfonso Mostalac recalled being ?tortured? by the presence of the girls in class, whose fashionable knee-length skirts exposed their legs. The short skirts made it easier for the boys to peak up the girls? legs when they stood on the second floor.483 Despite limits placed on girls, Andr?s Iduarte remembered how they talked with the older boys at the door of the school or in the garden of the nearby church. They socialized together at Caf? Alfonso in the student neighborhood (barrio estudiantil). Located only a few blocks from the Z?calo, the ENP lay at the heart of a district that was filled with cinemas, bars, bookstores, cafes, stores, restaurants, and public gardens. The ENP boys also gathered in the afternoon at the nearby Miguel Lerdo de Tejada vocational school to wait for girlfriends or prospective sweethearts. Showing their manners, boys carried girls? books, walked on the outside of the sidewalk, and bought a treat from the street vendors selling meats (carnitas), ice cream, and doughnuts (churros).484 483 Mariana Romo Pati?o, Las modernas. 484 Iduarte, Ni?o: Child of the Mexican Revolution, 134. Also see Jaime Pensado, ?Student Resistance, Political Violence and Youth Culture in Mexico City, c.1867-c.1965: A History of the Antecedents of Porrismo,? (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2008). 161 Iduarte?s experiences with girls in the ENP?s corridors allowed him to develop a new kind of relationship to the opposite sex. Rather than embarrass him or inspire sensual thoughts in him as had occurred in his earlier school years, the spirit of ?camaraderie? at the ENP taught him to treat girls without fear or desire. He found that ?contact with those girls, physically and scholastically more mature than I, taught me, to a certain point, to regard women in a spirit of naturalness and companionship.?485 However, changed attitudes towards women did not translate into gender equality. For some who married their classmates, marriage meant relinquishing dreams of a career. For instance, Clementina Batalla de Bassols married a fellow student who convinced her not to work outside the home.486 This husband, Narciso Bassols, became the brilliant but controversial and authoritarian Marxist Minister of Education from 1931-1934. Revolutionary men might support women?s education but did not necessarily support women?s careers, especially if the women in question were their wives. Yet the breached doors of the National Preparatory School made it a microcosm of the social and political changes wrought by the Revolution. Standing at the front of the classrooms were some of the brightest minds of Mexico, like Narciso Bassols, Ram?n Beteta, Antonio Caso, Vicente Lombardo Toledano, Jaime Torres Bodet, and Samuel Ramos. Students debated with their teachers and fellow students in an atmosphere of cultural and political ferment. The intellectual energy of the classrooms spilled into the corridors where students talked about history, discussed 485 Iduarte, Ni?o: Child of the Mexican Revolution, 134. 486 Clementina Batalla de Bassols, Instituto Mora, PHO 4/13, 43. 162 the texts of thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer, and read aloud classical works edited by Jos? Vasconcelos.487 Students discussed philosophy, wrote political and intellectual tracts, played sports, and went on excursions. Many debated the popular educational reforms put forward by Vasconcelos. Some criticized Vasconcelos for Mexico?s ?democratization? of culture, which they considered a debasement. While some read Karl Marx and rejected religion, faithful Catholics defended the Church. Future members of the Contempor?neos group like Salvador Novo and Xavier Villaurrutia, walked the halls with Frida Kahlo, some of whose members of the cachuchas went on to become well-respected professionals.488 In and outside the classroom, ENP students came in contact with new political ideologies and philosophical ideas. At school, Juan Olivera L?pez met revolutionary teachers and students who countered his father?s strong admiration for Porfirio D?az.489 Andr?s Iduarte similarly came into contact with stalwart revolutionaries, who forced him to reconsider his esteem for D?az. He had found in D?az a hero who fought against the French and made Mexico admired in Europe. Following his father?s political leanings, Iduarte felt an aversion for the Revolution because of its bloodshed and political corruption. He espoused equality for all, but admitted that he attributed the defects of the nation to the Indian.490 As a student at the ENP, instructors like Vicente Lombardo Toledano and Ram?n Beteta introduced Iduarte to socialist ideas 487 Teachers who were practicing Catholics generally avoided the topic of the Church's opposition to the Revolution. Their silence was out of economic necessity since any such indiscretion would have cost them their jobs. Iduarte, Ni?o: Child of the Mexican Revolution, 143. 488 Herrera, Frida, 27. 489 Juan Olivera Lopez, Instituto Mora, PHO 1/28, 13. 490 Iduarte, Ni?o: Child of the Mexican Revolution, 126-127. 163 and revolutionary ideology.491 In his memoirs, Iduarte describes how one day after several years at the ENP he removed the portrait of his childhood hero D?az from his bedroom wall.492 In the microcosm of the EPN, the partisan struggles of the late 1920s and the 1930s took shape. Students, such as Frida Kahlo?s friend, Germ?n de Campo, would take a leadership role in the dissident campaign of Jos? Vasconcelos for the presidency in 1929.493 With strong middle-class backing, Vasconcelos protested the state?s anti-religious campaign, its praetorianism, and corruption to champion electorally-driven political democracy and classical liberal freedoms. Bassols, Vicente Lombardo Toledano, and Ram?n Beteta, on the other hand, supported the state. Indeed, they led state endeavors to extend social democracy, engineer economic development, and alter middle-class mentalities. Electoral democracy was less important to them. In the 1930s, students and faculty split over government?s efforts to ?socialize? university education, i.e., to oblige it to respond to state demands for particular forms of training for national development. Another of Frida Kahlo?s friends, Alejandro G?mez Arias, championed the National University?s autonomy as president of the National Student Federation. In the 1930s, ENP instructor, university professor, and distinguished philosopher Antonio Caso would stand eloquently against his one-time colleague Vicente Lombardo Toledano?s insistence that the university bow to government demands. He would demand the autonomy of the 491 Iduarte, Ni?o: Child of the Mexican Revolution, 141. 492 Iduarte, Ni?o: Child of the Mexican Revolution, 149. 493 Herrera, Frida, 79. 164 university as a center of freedom of thought, inquiry, and expression.494 Conclusion The emergence of business and vocational schools in the 1920s resulted in a significant shift in the occupational structure of Mexico City. Disdaining traditional artisan work, many young people sought modern practical training. Post- revolutionary efforts to expand educational opportunities meant that working and middle-class individuals learned together. Many middle-class sons showed a clear preference for skills related to office employment. Rejecting manual labor, they associated their class status with the white-collar world of the office. Office work offered middle-class daughters a respectable way to support their families. However, most of these women quit working outside the home upon marriage. Some re-entered upon widowhood, or if their husbands became ill or disabled. Thus, a woman?s lifecycle often predicted her entry and exit from the workforce. The modern mother was the domesticated chica moderna trained in the latest domestic science. The angel of the home was just as vital and skilled a participant in the creation of a modern Mexico as her working counterpart. Under the administration of L?zaro C?rdenas (1934-1940), educational reform became the subject of more heated debate. Through the school system, the C?rdenas administration hoped to further goals considered key to the Revolution. Curriculum changes introduced sex education and socialist objectives into the classroom. Teachers were to develop a proletarian consciousness among future workers, whose 494 Herrera, Frida, 79. 165 objective would be to enhance the good of the collective. Members of the middle class, employed as managers, bosses, and professionals, subsequently had their class status and authority challenged. The new reforms incited reaction from several corners. Roman Catholics responded with strident protests and organized boycotts, while various new middle-class organizations vociferously condemned C?rdenista policies. 166 Chapter 6: Education and Middle-Class Discontent in the 1930s Introduction In 1931, Secretary of Education Narciso Bassols (1931-1934) aimed to bring the socialist vision to the rest of Mexico through the school system. During the Pascual Ortiz Rubio (1930-1932) and Abelardo L. Rodr?guez (1932-1934) administrations, Bassols banned religious teachings and installed curriculum that stressed a collectivist ethic. Socialist education became part of the ruling National Revolutionary Party?s (PNR) mandate. Bassols? attempts to implement socialist education, and later sex education, met with fierce resistance from many middle-class parents, as well as all Catholic Church organizations. Parents asserted the right to control their children?s upbringing and instill in them values of religiosity and sexual propriety. They opposed a paternal state that viewed itself as the head of one big Mexican family. Under President L?zaro C?rdenas (1934-1940), the government continued to focus on education?s importance in engendering a revolutionary collective. In order to promote education that would serve both the working and middle class and national development, he reformed and upgraded vocational, technical and professional training through the formation of the National Polytechnic Institute (Instituto Politecnico Nacional). He asked the middle class to abandon its individualist goals to join a productive alliance of the ?working classes.? The C?rdenas administration?s vision for the middle class had no supporters among Mexico City?s right-wing groups that claimed to speak for that class. Organizations like the Confederation of the Middle Class (Confederaci?n de la Clase Media, or CCM) attacked the C?rdenas 167 administration for highjacking the Mexican Revolution to promote a communist agenda. While the CMM and its allied organizations were small in numbers, they brought attention to growing dissent within Mexico City?s middle class. Socialist Education and Battles Over Classroom Curriculum Accords signed between the church and the Emilio Portes Gil administration ended the Cristero War in 1929. The Cristeros had fought a four-year armed conflict against Calles? efforts to ban all religious activity. But, in 1930, hostilities flared again when Pope Pius XI published an encyclical that proclaimed the superiority of Christian education. That same year, a radical young lawyer, Narciso Bassols, became Secretary of Education. His proposals for reform enflamed a still tense situation. Previously with the Department of Agriculture, Bassols had become known for his fervent anticlerical ideas and determination to bring about the social promises of the Revolution. Bassols? ideology stressed the state?s role in wealth redistribution, the promotion of technology for modernization, and the building of a secular and patriotic culture.495 Building on Calles? policies, Bassols banned religious teaching in schools and ordered the removal of religious iconography. Schools that failed to comply were fined and/or closed. In December 1931, Congress passed a law that extended state control over private schools affiliated with the federal system. The law allowed Bassols to institute further changes, including banning the clergy from teaching in such schools. He also invalidated diplomas from non-affiliated schools thus making 495 Mary Kay Vaughan, Cultural Politics in Revolution: Teachers, Peasants, and Schools in Mexico, 1930-1940 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997), 31. 168 them invalid for entry into state universities.496 Further, he proposed a socialist curriculum that would impart a rational view of the world and instill a collectivist ethic.497 Catholic organizations and conservative middle-class parents fiercely resisted. Many complied with Archbishop Pascual D?az Barreto?s order to not send their children to secular schools. Other parents with industrial, business, and professional interests worried that socialist education threatened the capitalist system.498 ?Down with Socialist Education? became the rallying cry of both Catholic and right-wing parents. The opposition found voice through the National Union of Parents (Uni?n Nacional de Padres de Familia, or UNPF), a lay organization subordinate to ecclesiastical authorities. The majority of its members were lawyers who defended the family as the indispensable base of society. They supported the right of parents to decide their children?s education, as well as the freedom to teach religion.499 In one of its many publications, the UNPF warned parents that the government was not interested in their children?s welfare. Socialism, the ?antireligious religion,? would see their children ?irremissibly lost without faith, without morals, without honor, without worth, and guilty of blasphemy like the 496 Ram?n Eduardo Ruiz, Triumphs and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People (New York: W.W. Norton, 1992), 393. See also John W. Sherman, The Mexican Right: The End of Revolutionary Reform, 1929-1940 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997). 497 Thomas Benjamin, ?Rebuilding the Nation,? in The Oxford History of Mexico, eds. William H. Beezley and Michael C. Meyer (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 485-486. 498 Valentina Torres Septi?n, La educaci?n privada en M?xico, 1903-1976 (M?xico, DF: Colegio de M?xico, 2004), 119. 499 Torres Septi?n, La educaci?n privada en M?xico, 1903-1976, 94. 169 unhappy ?young revolutionaries.??500 Parents should not trust politicians who had no respect for citizens and who were only interested in making money. The pamphlet pointed to the government?s treatment of public employees as evidence of mistreatment. State employees had no right to strike and indemnification and served as ?slaves subject to the whims of the politicians.?501 The UNPF turned the protest and subsequent boycott of secular schools into a patriotic mission. To fight against socialist education was to defend national values. ?Mexican: the socialist school paves the way for the Yankee invasion. Defend Your Country,? warned one UNPF pamphlet. ?What we do for your children,? it continued, ?We do for our Country.?502 The National Association for Freedom of Education (Asociaci?n Nacional Pro Libertad de Ense?anza) echoed the nationalist fervor. A leaflet announcing a meeting at the Cine Capitolio in the Colonia Guerrero exhorted parents to secure their children?s future. ?Saving the Country is Saving the Child? became the association?s motto.503 In an effort to counteract the UNPF, the Rodr?guez administration created its own organization and passed legislation in favor of socialist education. The Secretary of Education (SEP) formed the Association of Parents of the Mexican Republic (Asociaci?n de Padres de Familia de Rep?blica Mexicana) primarily to represent 500 Abajo educaci?n socialista 1930. Padres de familia. Centro de Estudios de Hist?ria de M?xico (CONDUMEX), [CEHM], fondo CLXXXII, Los impresos, C17 L1781. 501 Abajo educaci?n socialista 1930. Padres de familia. CEHM, fondo CLXXXII, Los impresos, C17 L1781. See also Padres de Familia, CEHM, fondo CLXXXII, Los impresos, C17 L1802. 502 "Lo que hagamos por los ni?os, lo haremos por la Patria," Asociacion Nacional de los Padres de la Familia, CEHM, fondo CLXXXII, Los Impresos, C1 L77. 503 Asuntos de Palpitante Interes 1933. Asociaci?n Nacional Pro Libertad de Ense?anza, CEHM, fondo CLXXXII, Los impresos, C17 L1684. 170 private schools. Launched in May 1933, the association hoped to limit UNPF activity in Mexico City. In 1933, the Law of Parent Organizations (Reglamento de las Agrupaciones de Padres de Familia) allowed only associations associated with the SEP to present demands and suggestions relative to education questions. All other parent associations were prohibited from intervening in the administration or direction of schools. Despite these efforts, UNPF claimed the support of public opinion.504 The organization gathered further support when Bassols rubbed salt into the wounds of wary parents by introducing sex education to the schools. The initiative came in response to a 1932 report from the Mexican Eugenics Society that cited a high frequency of unwanted pregnancies and abortions in adolescents. Bassols hoped that sex education would decrease the number of teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, while improving the health of the Mexican nation.505 Conservative parents were already anxious about the introduction of coeducation. In November 1929, an Omega newspaper headline declared that ?The Institutions of Mixed Sexes are True Centers of Scandal.? The article?s author described public schools as places of ?scandalous disorder? and ?frightening immoralities.? These ?mansions of Love? perverted and corrupted adolescent girls and boys through the ?premature awakening of the impulses of puberty.?506 To the 504 Torres Septi?n, La educaci?n privada en M?xico, 1903-1976, 119. 505 Emmanuel Moreno Rivera, ?Narciso Bassols: intellectual y revolucionario mexicano,? in El pensamiento latinoamericano del siglo XX ante la condici?n humana, ed. Alberto Saladino Garc?a, 2003. 506 ?Los planteles de ambos sexos son verdaderos centros de esc?ndalo,? Omega, November 8, 1929, p. 1, 4. 171 UNPF, sex education represented yet another government attack on virtue and parental rights. Classes on sexuality would surely pervert their children?s minds.507 Right-wing conservatives, various Catholic groups, and a number of newspapers and magazines joined the UNPF?s opposition.508 It even received support from the SEP- backed Association of Parents, which had been created by the government to counteract the UNPF.509 In February 1934, UNPF President Ignacio Bravo Betancourt called on parents and students to support a boycott against teachers who taught the offensive material. In the Federal District, 49 of 485 schools supported the call. The number of schools affected was small. However, protestors were vocal and had the support of the newspaper Excelsior, which served as a conduit of information. Defiant parents and students transformed the city?s movie theaters into meeting halls.510 In one gathering at the Cine D?az de Le?n, two thousand parents reportedly agreed to not send their children to school if the Secretary of Education included sex education in the curriculum. The meeting concluded with participants shouting the movement?s slogans ?Long live Christ the King!? and ?Down with the Constitution!?511 The UNPF printed and distributed stamps to drum up support for the 507 ?La educaci?n sexual,? El Universal, September 5, 1933, 1a, p. 3, 6. 508 Quejas contra educaci?n socialista y sexual. Padres de Familia, AGN, ALR, Caja 220, 580/varios. See also ?La nauseabunda educaci?n sexual no debe macular el pudor de la ni?ez,? Omega, January 12, 1934, p. 1 and ?Las madres de familia se pronuncian abiertamente contra la implantaci?n de la nauseabunda educaci?n sexual,? Omega, January 26, 1934, p. 1. 509 Soledad Loaeza, Clases medias y pol?tica en M?xico (M?xico, DF: El Colegio de M?xico, 1999), 103. 510 Torres Septi?n, La educaci?n privada en M?xico, 1903-1976, 123. 511 Torres Septi?n, La educaci?n privada en M?xico, 1903-1976, 123. 172 boycott.512 These played on parental fears. ?There are not enough prisons in Mexico to hold all worthy parents,? claimed one. Another warned parents against complying with the state: ?Your children will be your inexorable judge and your executioner.?513 Socialist and sex education would destroy family life as the state seized and exploited Mexican children. ?The socialist school attempts to prostitute the Mexican child and youth ? and ?MEXICAN MOTHER: Do not permit your children to be dragged into prostitution,? cautioned the stamps. Writings in the UNPF?s official bulletins repeated these threats.514 These questioned the motherhood of those sent their children to school. ?If you cowardly abandon the fight,? the UNPF argued, ?you do not deserve the sacred name of mother.?515 Archbishop Pascual D?az Barreto condemned sex education. In a publication entitled ?Parents? Guide to Parents For the Moral Sex Education of Children,? he denounced the discussion of venereal disease as offensive to children and parents. He also criticized the government?s emphasis on sports. They might admirably pull youth out of dance halls and cinemas, but they kept children from attending Sunday mass.516 The UNPF had a similar problem with school sports, but for a different reason. In a 512 CEHM, fondo CLXXXII, Los impresos, C17 L1792. 513 CEHM, fondo CLXXXII, Los impresos, C17 L1790. 514 ?La prostituci?n de la ni?ez y la destrucci?n del hogar como altos ideales del programa de educaci?n socialista.? Bolet?n Oficial of the Uni?n Nacional de Padres de Familia, December 6, 1933, p. 1 and 4, CEHM, fondo CLXXXII, Los impresos, C17 L1730. See also ?La prostituci?n de la ni?ez,? Bolet?n Oficial of the Uni?n Nacional de Padres de Familia, May 10, 1933, CEHM, fondo CLXXXII, Los impresos, C17 L1730. 515 Madres defendiendo a sus hijos. No date. CEHM, fondo CLXXXII, Los impresos, C17 L1788. 516 Gu?a de los padres para la educaci?n moral sexual de los hijos. Educaci?n sexual. Base Pascual D?az Barreto, caja 58, exp. 3 (1934). For response to the parents? guide, see Educaci?n sexual. Base Pascual D?az Barreto, caja 67, exp. 26 (1934). 173 leaflet written to the female students of the Federal District, the UNPF warned that, under the pretext of a ?uniform,? the government wanted young honorable Mexican women to appear ?seminude.? Regarding one particular athletic event, the UNPF exhorted students to stay at home for the sake of ?modesty, decorum, and dignity? as well as ?solidarity against the official tyranny.?517 To support the boycott, some parents sent their children to underground religious schools that had been established during the Calles administration. In the neighborhood of Santa Mar?a la Ribera, spies continued reporting suspicious religious activities. Government agents recorded the police detainment of nuns at a school on Amado Nervo Street, and the closure of a school on Camelia Street for the use of prohibited religious educational material.518 Another spy discovered that the Verbo Encarnado School, which officials had closed, had re-opened under the name Academia Inglesia.519 Yet, the same nuns continued teaching and imparting religious instruction. The spy heard the muffled singing of religious hymns coming from behind closed shutters.520 517 Uniformes para las chicas. Padres de familia, 1934/35, CEHM, fondo CLXXXII, Los impresos, C17 L1801. 518 On the nuns, see Rivero y Mart?nez, vol. 2, 192 (January 1928). On school closure, see AGN, DGG, Violaci?n Ley de Cultos, caja 4, exp. 2.345.1 (29) 32. From 1932-1934, government spies reported on El Sagrado Coraz?n de Jesus, a secondary school for girls. See AGN, DGG, Violaci?n Ley de Cultos, caja 5, exp. 2.345 (29) 25 bis; AGN, Oficina de Informaci?n Pol?tica y Social [IPS], vol. 305, exp. 264, fs: n/a (dates 1932-1934). 519 AGN, DGG, Violaci?n Ley de Cultos, caja 4, exp. 2.345.1 (29) 31 (1933). 520 The Ladies of the Sacred Heart (Damas del sagrado coraz?n) t in the neighborhood of Santa Mar?a la Ribera also appeared in a spy report from 1932. The Chief of Police ordered the nuns to stop teaching secondary education to upper-class women. AGN, DGG, Violaci?n Ley de Cultos, caja 3. 2.345.1 (29) 9. 174 Vociferous protests finally forced Bassols to cancel the proposal for sex education. In May 1934, he resigned.521 His departure was a big victory for the opposition which continued its struggle against socialist education. According to one 1935 calculation, 25,000 children in the Federal District attended underground schools that operated under a variety of names, including ?home-schools,? ?home- centers,? ?school operations,? and ?clandestine school groups.?522 In October 1934, the University Student Federation (Federaci?n Estudantil Universitaria) mobilized to support the opposition.523 The federation invited students attending technical schools to join their strike against socialist education.524 On October 19, the third day of the strike, ?scandals provoked by students? erupted in the area surrounding the neighborhood of Santa Mar?a la Ribera. Students took over the Pensador Mexicano School and blockaded its doors. At nearby schools, students shouted and hurled firecrackers. Near the Tacuba neighborhood, police detained students for smashing windows and breaking doors.525 The following day, the Excelsior newspaper reported 521 Sherman, The Mexican Right, 37. See also Julia Tu??n Pablos, Women in Mexico: A Past Unveiled, trans. Alan Hynds (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999), 101. 522 In Spanish, ?escuelas-hogar,? ?centros-hogar,? ?operaci?n escuela,? or ?grupos escolares clandestinos.? See Torres Septi?n, La educaci?n privada en M?xico, 1903-1976, 146. See also Valentina Torres Septi?n, ?La educaci?n entre sombras: Los a?os de persecuci?n,? Los Cristeros: Conferencias del ciclo de primavera de 1996 (M?xico, DF: CONDUMEX, 1996). 523 ?Se forma el frente unico para luchar en contra de la ??educaci?n socialista,?? Excelsior, October 14, 1934, 1a, p. 1, 5. See also ?Raza de esclavos como producto de la nueva escuela,? Excelsior, October 9, 1934, 1a, p. 4, 8. 524 ?Se inicio una huelga de escuelas tecnicas ayer en esta capital,? Excelsior, October 17, 1934, 1a, p. 1, 2. 525 Other schools in Santa Mar?a included one on Cedro Street and Secondary Schools #2 and #4 on Ribera de San Cosme Street. ?Nuevos escandalos en la capital por causa de la huelga escolar,? Excelsior, October 19, 1934, 1a, p. 1, 3. 175 that much of the conflict had subsided. Student protestors abandoned the buildings and children returned to class.526 The engagement of university students, professors and authorities against socialist education had been building for some time, particularly in response to Ignacio Garcia Tellez support for the reform during his tenure as rector from 1929 to 1932. Subsequent rectors, Roberto Medell?n Ostos (1932-3), Manuel Gomez Mor?n (1933-4) and Fernando Ocaranza (1934-5) opposed it and had the support of key faculty members and new conservative student organizations such as the Nationalist Youth of Mexico (Juventudes Nacionalistas de M?xico), the Anti-Communist University Students (Estudiantes Universitarios Anticomunistas) and the National Union of Catholic Students (Uni?n Nacional de Estudiantes Catolicos). The struggle between a radicalizing federal government and the national university would come to a head under the presidency of L?zaro C?rdenas. 527 L?zaro C?rdenas and the Middle Class: The Battle over Vocational, Technical and Professional Training L?zaro C?rdenas became president of Mexico in December 1934 with a platform that included socialist education. National protests against its anti-religious content forced his government to abandon this front in 1936 and by 1938, C?rdenas acknowledged the role of private schools in meeting the nation?s educational needs. 526 ?Disminuye la agitaci?n en los centros estudiantils,? Excelsior, October 20, 1934, 1a, p. 1, 4. 527 Michael E. Burke, ?University of Mexico and the Revolution, 1910-1940,? The Americas 34/2 (October 1977): 268. See also Gabriela Contreras P?rez, Los grupos cat?licos en la Universidad Aut?noma de M?xico (1933-1944) (M?xico, DF: UAM, 2002); David Espinosa, ?Student Politics, National Politics: Mexico?s National Student Union, 1926-1934,? The Americas 62/4 (April 2006): 533-562. 176 But in the area of technical, vocational, and professional training, he launched a vigorous challenge to the middle class. C?rdenas claimed the Revolution was committed to resolving the problems of workers, which included the middle class. The middle class belonged to the working sector and its interests were linked to those of the proletariat.528 Socialist education, he asserted, would ensure that members of Mexico?s present and future middle class shared in the collective struggle for national development and social harmony. C?rdenas had a more technical, industrial vision of Mexico?s future than his predecessors and a deeper commitment to the welfare of urban and rural workers. SEP reports told him that existing technical and vocational schools underserved working class families who could not afford to sacrifice income by dedicating a son to fulltime study. Rather, the schools had come to serve sons of liberal professionals, property owners, small industrialists, and bureaucrats. Individualist and bourgeois in their backgrounds, claimed the report, these students worked solely to surpass the economic success of their fathers and to ?liberate? their families. They passed from workshop to office and from countryside to city, concerned with procuring a good job rather than partaking in the Revolution. Worst of all, graduates with the ?pink psychological color of the middle class? showed a hostile attitude toward the organized working class.529 A report on women?s schools reached similar conclusions. They were not attracting the working class who had a vital interest in 528 ?Cual es la causa para implantar la nueva escuela,? Excelsior, October 29, 1934, 1a, p. 1, 3. 529 Escuelas t?cnicas para varones, Memoria ramo de educaci?n p?blica, August 31, 1934, 183-184, Archivo Hist?rico de la Secretar?a de Educaci?n P?blica [AHSEP], Mexico City. 177 possessing a money-making skill. Rather, the schools attracted girls and women of the middle class who attended at the cost of the state for ?personal goals.?530 But the technical and industrial schools suffered from a general lack of interest. Purportedly linked to this was a Mexican disdain for manual occupations. The PNR?s newspaper El Nacional argued that Mexicans harbored a deeply ingrained distaste for physical work. ?All over Mexico [there] weighed a prejudice against manual work, brought by the Spanish conqueror. Not only the middle class, but also the worker and campesino aspire that their children enter universities and study some liberal profession.?531 C?rdenas? new National Council on Higher Education and Scientific Research (Consejo Nacional de la Educaci?n Superior y la Investigaci?n Cient?fica) argued that the ?antiquated? system of post-primary education condensed ?the vices and anachronism of Mexico?s social organization since colonial times.? President C?rdenas went further. Liberalism itself, he stated, had been damagingly antisocial with its anarchical ideas about work and freedom of education and its egoism. Moreover, the upper class had obtained a monopoly over higher education and caused Mexico to suffer from the ?cancer of an exaggerated professionalism.?532 Another critic described graduates in the traditional professions of the law, medicine, and engineering as removed from social reality: they ?close their eyes to Mexico?s problems? and facilitate the ?intervention of foreign technicians.? Lacking a 530 Las escuelas industriales para mujeres, Memoria ramo de educaci?n p?blica, August 31, 1934, 173, AHSEP. 531 ?Notas sobre la ense?anza t?cnica en M?xico,? El Nacional, January 23, 1937, AE, ET, M12272. 532 Presidential Speech, 1935, Archivo General de la Naci?n [AGN], L?zaro C?rdeanas del R?o [LCR], vol. 688, exp. 534/100. 178 collective ethic, they pursued personal gain. With such egotistical aspirations, they monopolized bureaucratic positions.533 To address these problems, C?rdenas in January 1937 inaugurated the coeducational National Polytechnic Institute (Instituto Polit?cnico Nacional) on the grounds of the ex-hacienda of Santo Tomas, bordering on the colonia of Santa Maria la Ribera. 534 The IPN consolidated the SEP?s existing technological and vocational schools, including six pre-vocational schools, four vocational schools, and seven professional schools. The latter included the Escuela Superior de Comercio y Ciencias Sociales y Econ?micas, the Escuela de Ingenier?a Mec?nica y El?ctrica (ESIME), Escuela Superior de Construcci?n (which later changed its name to Escuela Supeior de Ingenier?a y Arquitectura, or ESIA), the Escuela Federal de Industrias Textiles (which later changed its name to Escuela Superior de Industrias Textiles, or ESIT), Escuela de Medicina Homeop?tica, Escuela de Bacteriologia, and the Escuela de Bacteriolog?a Parasitolog?a y Fermentaci?n.535 The purpose was to instill among the students throughout the IPN system a collective responsibility for national development and a commitment to class harmony. Students trained for management and professional positions would develop a consciousness ?bound to the interests of the proletariat? and form part of the broadly defined ?working classes? (clases trabajadores). 533 ?El ejercicio profesional,? El Universal, September 10, 1936, 1a, p.1, 10. 534 Excelsior, January 1, 1936, Biblioteca Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, Mexico City [BMLT], Archivos Econ?micos [AE], Ense?anza T?cnica [ET], M12272. 535 Mar?a de los Angeles Rodr?guez Alvarez, et al., IPN: 50 a?os de la educaci?n tecnol?gica (M?xico, DF: IPN, 1988), 133. 179 The government equipped the schools with the latest technology and students received practical training that would help meet the needs of the Mexican people. With its developmentalist goals, the IPN immediately added new careers in aeronautical, petrochemical, and metallurgical engineering. The Escuela de Bacteriologia became the Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biol?gicas and offered careers in rural medicine, parasitology, botany, zoology and physical and social anthropology. In 1940, the IPN introduced training in nursing and obstetrics. The School of Commerce made organizing cooperatives in poor neighborhoods a central priority. Engineering and electricity programs addressed the needs of nationalized industries.536 The IPN would serve the expanding middle class and newly empowered working class as well as aspirants to both. In its hierarchical structure it offered full six-year career training while ensuring short-term acquisition of skills and multiple options between these extremes. The government provided scholarships, subsidized dining rooms and cafeterias, and built dormitories to expand access. Later in 1952, the IPN would open a new boarding facility (internado) to serve the numerous students who came from other states, many of whom would join the ranks of Mexico City?s expanded middle class.537 The IPN in the late 1930s drew students from diverse class backgrounds. Studies characterize the IPN as a working-class institution from its opening until the 536 Jaime Pensado, ?Student Resistance, Political Violence and Youth Culture in Mexico City, c.1867- c.1965: A History of the Antecedents of Porrismo? (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2008), 52. 537 Mar?a de los Angeles Rodr?guez Alvarez, et al., IPN: 50 a?os de la educaci?n tecnol?gica (M?xico, DF: IPN, 1988); ?Cronolog?a del IPN, Esculeas,? accessed October 10, 2011, http://www.mexicomaxico.org/IPN/CronoIPN.htm#crono 180 early 1950s. However, in 1936 the majority of students, 36.6 percent, came from parents working as public and private employees. Certainly some of these families claimed middle-class status. Another 26.7 percent came from families of artisans, workers, and campesinos while 14.4 percent came from families working in business and agriculture. Again, it is unclear how these families self-identified in terms of class membership.538 C?rdenas considered the IPN a genuine project of the Mexican Revolution. The institute enjoyed an official relationship with the state that precluded institutional autonomy. The C?rdenas administration encouraged all student federations once associated with the individual technical schools to unite into a single umbrella organization. In 1937, the National Federation of Technical Students (Federaci?n Nacional de Estudiantes T?cnicos, or FNET) came to represent all the students of the IPN. Two years later, the organization became the Confederation of Mexican Youth (Confederaci?n de J?venes M?xicanos, or CJM). The CJM served as the youth wing of the official state party, the Mexican Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Mexicano, or PRM), and later the unofficial student wing of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, or PRI).539 Upon its opening, the IPN organized an American-style football team that played to large crowds in the new Salvador Camino Stadium, named for a young IPN athlete who had won prizes in track at the first Central American Games (Juegos Centroamericanos). The highlight of the season was the game played against the 538 Pensado, ?Student Resistance, Political Violence and Youth Culture in Mexico City,? 31. 539 Pensado, ?Student Resistance, Political Violence and Youth Culture in Mexico City,? 55. 181 football team of the National Autonomous University (Universidad Nacional Aut?noma de M?xico, or UNAM).540 Indeed, the creation of the IPN was a response and a challenge to the national university. C?rdenas called upon the more conservative UNAM to orient itself technically and socially to the ideals of the Revolution. He pushed for a revision of curriculum that would stress preparation appropriate to national development while instilling values of hard work and collective solidarity. His ally, Vicente Lombardo Toledano, head of the newly formed and powerful Confederation of Mexican Workers (Confederaci?n de Trabajadores de M?xico, or CTM) vociferously and publicly called upon the university to ?socialize? its curriculum in the interests of the nation and its masses. Antonio Caso of the university?s Faculty of Philosophy and Letters (Facultad de Filosofia y Letras) and a relative of Vicente Lombardo Toledano by marriage, answered him eloquently, firmly, and publicly. The university would not socialize itself at the behest of the government. Autonomous from the government, the university operated on the principle of freedom of inquiry and expression. Caso won the debate. Still More Middle-Class Discontent Throughout the 1930s, groups claiming to represent the middle class organized around issues not solely targeted at socialist education. They ranged from apparently non-partisan associations of the unemployed to anti-communist organizations such as the Confederation of the Middle Class (Confederaci?n de la 540 Cronolog?a del IPN, Esculeas. http://www.mexicomaxico.org/IPN/CronoIPN.htm#crono 182 Clase Media, or CCM) to out-right fascist groups like the Mexican Revolutionary Action (Acci?n Revolucionaria Mexicanista, or ARM), also known as the Gold Shirts (Camisas Doradas). The groups shared in common a resentment against being ?left out??whether they were unemployed by the virtue of the Depression, impoverished by cheap foreign imports, or ignored by a government that favored organized manual workers and rural land reform recipients. Some had been early supporters of the revolution who now felt marginalized and betrayed. Yet as much as these groups wanted attention and redress from the government, many were loathe to associate themselves with the militantly organizing working class and its tactics. They also repudiated C?rdenas? grand notion of a collective composed of ?the working classes? (las clases trabajadores), or the political alternative C?rdenas offered to the middle classes when he reformed the PNR to create the PRM in 1938.541 The National Workers? Confederation Pro-Employment (Confederaci?n Nacional Obrera pro-Trabajo, or CNOT) formed in 1930 in response to the dismal unemployment that grew with the New York stock market crash. The ?desperate situation of the middle class? was clear, wrote Excelsior, when two hundred individuals showed up at the offices of a single business at 8 a.m. in the morning in hopes of getting a job.542 The CNOPT, Mexico City?s most important organization for the unemployed, claimed 3,500 members, including artisans, employees of public and private offices, doctors, lawyers, and manual workers. In January 1930, it convened 541 Historians have pointed to frustration and sense of marginalization among unorganized sectors of the middle class, namely professionals and small merchants. Garciadiego, ?La oposici?n conservadora y de las clases medias al cardenismo,? 32; Loaeza, Clases medias y pol?tica en M?xico, 78-98. 542 ?Urgen fuentes de trabajo para la clase media,? Excelsior, August 30, 1930, p. 1. 183 to discuss ?the huge problem of our subsistence.? In March, nearly 4,000 joined a ?silent protest? to draw attention to their plight and seek help from President Ortiz Rubio.543 In August 1930, a thousand concerned citizens met in the Mina movie theater. The organization discussed make-shift solutions such as the creation of cooperative workshops and more permanent ones such as the colonization of virgin territory.544 When their leader, Febronio M?ndez, told Excelsior that the group sought only jobs and had no intention of making politics, he expressed a middle-class aversion to the radical tactics of blue-collar workers. On the other hand, he blamed the situation partially on the middle class?s failure to organize. No salvation would arrive, he asserted, ?if the middle class continues to live by its usual apathy.?545 The Confederaci?n de la Clase Media, or CCM was more overtly political. Its defense of the middle class was explicitly anti-communist and a response to proliferating working-class strikes. Brigida von Mentz estimates that the CMM probably had no more than 30 to 40 active members, most of whom, according to government security reports, lived in Santa Maria la Ribera and the more upscale colonias of Roma and Condesa.546 Soledad Loaeza writes that its members included 543 Esther Martina V?zquez Ram?rez, Oganizaci?n y resistencia popular en la ciudad de M?xico durante el crisis de 1929-1932 (M?xico, DF: INEHR, 1998), 132-133, 136. The global economic crash of October 1929 exasperated a difficult situation. The unemployment figures were already high a few months before the crash. AGN, Emilio Portes Gil [EPG], vol. 65, exp. 5/487, fs: 2 (August 3, 1929). 544 A newspaper article exhorted the unemployed middle class ? to convince their friends ? that they should go to the countryside to earn their sustenance and that of their families.? ?Desea colonizar Cozumel un grupo de desocupados,? Exc?lsior, September, 1930 cited in V?zquez Ram?rez, 137. 545 See ?Mil hombres sin trabajo celebrar?n una asamblea,? Exc?lsior, August 30, 1930 cited in V?zquez Ram?rez, 136. 546 Brigida von Mentz, Los empresarios alemanes, el Tercer Reich, y la oposici?n de la derecha a C?rdenas (Mexico: CIESAS, 1988), 302-303. AGN, IPS, Vol. 205, Exp. 1, fs: 1-6. February 22, 1938. For other reports on the CCM, see AGN, IPS, vol. 205, exp. 3, Fs: 12, 14, 16, 20. 184 those who had supported Obreg?n and Calles as well as those who had supported Jos? Vasconcelos? Anti-reelectionist party.547 The brothers Enrique and Gustavo S?enz de Sicilia founded the CMM. Enrique was a lawyer who had directed Obreg?n?s presidential campaign in 1920. He then worked for the consular service and the Bank of Mexico before opening a financial firm that failed in the stock market crash. His brother Gustavo was an engineer who had participated in the formation of the short-lived Fascist Party in 1922. A pioneer in Mexican silent cinema, he was producer, director, and scriptwriter for many early films. With Enrique, he formed the Compa?ia Nacional Productora de Pel?culas that produced some of Mexico?s first sound movies. These included classics such as Santa and Fernando de Fuentes? Prisionero Trece. Santa expressed a middle-class aversion to the vice and prostitution that threatened to disgrace young women migrating to Mexico City. El Prisionero Trece was the first of Fernando de Fuentes? trilogy denouncing leaders of the revolution as an opportunistic and corrupt class driven by the pursuit of power and wealth, rather than principles of social welfare and democracy. In a way, it was a response to the government?s condemnation of middle-class egotism. Gustavo Saenz de Sicilia, a prominent member of the conservative National Association of Charros, is also said to have introduced to Mexican cinema the figure of the charro, the fancy horseman and gentleman (gal?n), associated with a film genre that celebrated the hacienda as a harmonious hierarchy of kind owners and happy peons.548 In their Declaration of 547 Loaeza, Clases medias y pol?tica en M?xico, 96-97. 548 Tania Carre?o King, El charro: la construcci?n de un estereotipo nacional, 1920-1940, (M?xico, DF: Instituto Nacional de Estudios Hist?ricos de la Revoluci?n Mexicana, 2000); Ricardo P?rez 185 Principles, Saenz de Sicilia brothers stated the CCM?s objective as the ?economic and moral betterment of middle class workers.? They affirmed that the middle class represented ?the productive and consumer strength of the country, the bureaucratic mass (masa bureaucratica) and intellectual sector (factor pensante).? The C?rdenas administration had given (manual) workers victories that made them ?privileged,? while the middle class struggled at the margins of the nation?s progress.549 They complained of the increasingly corporate structure of the political system under C?rdenas, which institutionally excluded middle-class groups not represented by state-backed unions. Professionals, renters? groups, small shopkeepers, and artisans were without organizational power or formal representation within the ruling party.550 Only one middle class sector was represented at the political table: the public employees. But these public sector workers were weighed down by the heavy hand of the PNR party. Like the National Workers? Confederation Pro Employment (CNOPT), the CMM abjured sindicalist forms. The organization operated through profuse propaganda and coordinated action with similar groups. Like the CNOPT, CCM members took up the cause of the unemployed. The group called for the creation of producer and consumer cooperatives, credit unions, and mutual aid societies to Monfort, Estampas de nacionalismo popular mexicano: ensayos sobre cultura popular y nacionalismo (M?xico, DF: CIESAS, 1994); Emilio Garc?a Riera, Historia documental del cine mexicano, Vol. 5 (Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1992). 549 Declaraci?n de principios, programa de acci?n y estatutos de la ?Confederaci?n de la Clase Media,? M?xico, DF: n.p, 1936, p. 6, 20; AGN, LCR, vol. 120, exp. 136.3/432 (1936); AGN, LCR, vol. 490, exp. 437.1/512 (June 3, 1936); AGN, LCR, vol. 490, exp.437.1/512 (August 18, 1936). 550 Diane E. Davis, Urban Leviathan, Mexico City in the Twentieth Century (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1994), 88-89. 186 provide social security.551 It recommended new agricultural colonies. Leading members appealed to the government for funds to set up cooperative workshops in domestic industries such as sewing and requested land to build affordable housing, small workshops, and factories.552 Like the presidents of the 1920s, Gustavo S?enz de Sicilia argued for the importance of accessible home ownership for the middle class and appealed to the government to make it possible.553 In the desperate years of revolutionary violence and the early 1920s, middle class sectors had organized for such assistance from the state. In the depression of the 1930s, they were once again needy and undoubtedly spurred in their ideas and their petitions by the actions of the peasantry and workers whose tactics they despised. They wanted a place at the table but on their own terms. The CCM worked with right-wing organizations that claimed to represent specific groups within the middle class. The Pro-Race Union (Uni?n Pro-Raza) created in 1930 focused on protecting artisans and small businesses from foreign competition. In its declaration of principles, the union claimed to defend cabinetmakers, musicians, photographers, potters, shoemakers, silversmiths, and tailors, and all those who ?belonged to the middle class with an artisan skill (oficio).? The CMM seems to have integrated this organization by 1937. Another group, the Civic Action Party of the Middle Class (Accion Partido Civico de la Clase Media) 551 Declaraci?n de principios, programa de acci?n y estatutos de la ?Confederaci?n de la Clase Media,? M?xico, DF: n.p, 1936, p. 6, 20. On the relationship between military veterans and the CCM, see newspaper articles in El Hombre libre, October 25, 1937, p. 1 and November 1, 1937, p. 1. 552 AGN, LCR, vol. 1050, exp. 565.4/1391 (1937). 553 AGN, LCR, vol. 490, exp. 437.1/512, fs: 4 (August 18, 1936). 187 claimed a membership united ?under the banner of nationality.?554 Middle-class military officers who felt excluded from the Revolution?s benefits formed the National Union of Veterans of the Revolution (Uni?n Nacional de Veteranos de la Revoluci?n) in 1936. They demanded better pay and living conditions for military personnel and defended military benefits (prebendas).555 The Revolutionary Mexican Action (ARM) had 3,500-4,000 members across the country with the majority representing middle-class military personnel.556 These organizations reacted to workers? strikes, land redistribution, and government populism by varyingly espousing anti-communism, anti-semitism, fascism, and xenophobic nationalism. In 1937, the CMM tried unsuccessfully to organize an Ibero-American anti-communist conference in Havana that drew interest and support from representatives of the fascist governments of Germany, Italy and Spain.557 The Civic Action Party exalted the nation?s Spanish cultural heritage (hispanismo) and supported Spain?s Francisco Franco.558 The Union of Veterans condemned the C?rdenas administration?s policies as communist. ARM leader Nicol?s Rodr?guez described his group as national socialist and demanded the 554 Alicia Gojman Goldberg, ?La Acci?n Revolucionaria Mexicanista. Los camisas doradas, 1934- 1940,? (Tesis de doctorado, UNAM, 1998), 41. On the CCM?s nationalism, see AGN, LCR, vol. 120, exp. 136.3/432, leg. 3. 555 Garciadiego, ?La oposici?n conservadora y de las clases medias al cardenismo,? 42. See also Ricardo P?rez Montfort, ?Los camisas doradas,? Secuencia (ene-abr 1986): 66-77. 556 P?rez Montfort, ?Los camisas doradas,? 72. See also Hugh G. Campbell, La derecha radical en M?xico 1929-1949 (M?xico, DF: SEP SETENTAS, 1976), 276. 557 ?En el primer congreso Ibero-Americano ant?comunista desarrollar? interesante programa la Confederaci?n de la Clase Media,? Omega, October 23, 1936, p. 1. 558 Ricardo P?rez Montfort, Hispanismo y falange. Los sue?os imperiales de la derecha espa?ola y M?xico (M?xico, DF: Fondo de Cultura Econ?mica, 1992). 188 expulsion of Jews.559 ARM members also attacked communism as a threat to the family, morality, and private property. Police reports suggest that these organizations worked together. In August 1936, detainees held by the Mexico City police for putting up ARM propaganda included CCM leader Gustavo S?enz de Sicilia and eight members of the Veterans? Union.560 Articles in right-wing newspapers fanned the fears of communism and civil war. One critic blamed President C?rdenas? ?perfidious theory of a society without classes.? Rather, he was fomenting hatred between the diverse sectors of the country to the point of provoking a ?civil war.? At the same time, the writer condemned the passive acceptance of the middle class. The ?suicidal apathy? of the middle and intellectual classes had allowed the government to spread an ?impudent propaganda of communism, which they disguise with the names of socialism, radical socialism and leftism.?561 Groups like the CCM and ARM repeated their frustration that the middle class ? professionals, public and private employees, small farmers, industrialists and merchants ? had been left out of the Revolution?s benefits. Their exclusion had occurred despite their significance to society and the economy and the fact that from the dawn of independence, the middle class had supplied the nation?s leaders.562 Concern for the absence of representation grew as C?rdenas in 1937 proposed a restructuring of the PNR to include corporate organizations representing social 559 AGN, IPS, vol. 204, exp. 17, fs: 52-54 (August 1934). 560 AGN, LCR, vol. 490, exp. 437.1/512, fs: 20. 561 ?Vigoroso llamamiento a las clases media e intelectual,? Omega, February 17, 1938, p. 1, 4. 562 Declaraci?n de principios, programa de acci?n y estatutos de la ?Confederaci?n de la Clase Media,? 189 groups. The CTM would represent Mexican workers and the National Campesino Confederation (Confederaci?n Nacional Campesina, or CNC) would represent campesinos, specifically those who had received land from the government. In an article in El Universal entitled ?The Wounded Middle Class,? R?ben Salazar Mall?n noted the plan?s hostility to the middle class that had since the PNR?s foundation ?acted as its pedestal.? He claimed that the middle class sustained the official revolutionary party. Proposed changes to the PNR structure would ?displace the middle class? and consign its members to the margins of national issues. The middle class was ?the most vital part of all organized society:? its artists, technicians and thinkers contributed to the improvement of Mexican culture. All of Mexico would suffer from this ?death blow? to the middle class.563 C?rdenas Responds to the Middle Class The C?rdenas administration was uneasy about the proliferation of right-wing opposition groups, concerned about middle-class loyalty, and aware of material difficulties facing many in this sector.564 In 1939, the ruling party?s newspaper, El Nacional, described the long lines at pawnshops made up of the ?honorable professional who has neither clients nor influence,? ?the politician fallen from grace who had a car and now has to pawn the last stickpin to buy oil,? ?the student,? and ?the widow with her sewing machine.? 565 In 1938, the state publicity department 563 R?ben Salazar Mall?n, ?La clase media herida,? El Universal, December 30, 1937. 564 Javier Garciadiego, ?La oposici?n conservadora y de las clases medias al cardenismo,? 45. 565 ?Las hienas de los empe?os,? August 25, 1939, 2a, p. 1. See ?El destino de la clase media,? El Universal, February 2, 1938, 1a, p. 3. 190 (Departamento Autonoma de Prensa y Publicidad, or DAPP) issued a pamphlet entitled Strength and Weakness of the Middle Class (Fuerza y flaqueza de la clase media) acknowledging middle-class concerns with combating monopolies, organizing fairer systems for the distribution of goods, and guaranteeing small property owners. In the midst of the oil expropriation, it called for the ?solidarity of the most cultured (m?s cultos).? Together the members of the middle class could contribute to national cohesion by emphasizing ?the triumph of Mexican sovereignty? in lecture halls and professional unions. It called on the farmer and small businessmen to help stop the spread of ?crazy? and ?malevolent? rumors about Mexico?s future. Acknowledging the differences ?between the intellectual and the modest bookkeeper, and between the doctor and farm owner,? the pamphlet pointed out that many shared the condition of being self-employed and all were distinct from the empresarial class. The writer expressed sympathy for those who in their ?diversity and indeterminate position lay crushed between the two millstones of capitalism and the proletariat with its head in the upper bourgeoisie and its feet in the proletariat.?566 Praising the middle class as sister of the working class, the pamphlet assured readers that C?rdenas had not forgotten them. His recent transformation of the PNR into the Mexican Revolutionary Party (PRM) would aid middle-class political organizing and the middle class?s merger with the proletariat in common struggle. Indeed, C?rdenas had reorganized the party creating four sectors: the labor sector represented by the CTM, the campesino sector, represented by the CNC, the military, 566 ?Fuerza y flaqueza de la clase media,? (M?xico, DF: Departamento Aut?noma de Prensa y Publicidad, 1938). 191 and a popular sector that would supposedly include many middle-class organizations. Although a bid for middle-class support and inclusion, this sector did not satisfy groups like the CMM. It favored only groups closely associated with the state, most notably public employees organized into the Federation of State Workers? Union (Federaci?n de Sindicatos de Trabajadores al Servicio del Estado), or FSTSE.567 However, the strength of the coterie of right-wing middle class groups fizzled in 1938. According to Brigida von Mentz, evidence and publicity associated them with the attempted coup of General Saturnino Cedillo, with the conservative association of Mexican businessmen (Confederaci?n Patronal de la Rep?blica Mexicana), and with European fascism. This occurred at a moment when the government decided to crack down on fascist propaganda as the administration made common cause with the United States in the approaching war.568 The government?s oil expropriation generated an enormous patriotic response that knocked the wind out of the sails of right-wing nationalism.569 In 1940, the CMM and affiliated organizations joined the presidential campaign of opposition candidate General Juan Andreu Almaz?n against PRM candidate Manuel Avila Camacho.570 The tremendous 567 The FSTSE included those previously organized under the National Federation of Workers (Federaci?n Nacional de Trabajadores del Estado), or FNTE. The latter united Mexico City?based workers providing urban services as well as telegraph industry employees, street maintenance workers, postal workers, government employees in several key ministries, and office employees in the Mexico City government. Davis, Urban Leviathan, 88. 568 Mentz, ?Los empresarios alemanes,? 303. 569 Mentz, ?Los empresarios alemanes,? 303. 570 Garciadiego, ?La oposici?n conservadora y de las clases medias al cardenismo,? 45, 77. Almaz?n headed the Revolutionary Party of National Unification (Partido Revolucionario de Unificaci?n Nacional). On the relationship between students, public employees, and Almaz?n, see ?La vigoros juventud universitaria toma sitio en las filas almanzanistas, Omega, July 1, 1939, p. 1; ?Almazan ofrece que los empleados p?blicos disfrutan de garantias y consideraciones, ?Omega, September 9, 1939, p. 1. On the support of the CCM for Almaz?n, see ?La CCM a favor de Almaz?n,? El Hombre 192 showing of support for Almaz?n at the polls would convince the government and the party to take more concrete steps to incorporate and neutralize the middle class. But under C?rdenas, the middle-class beneficiary of state largesse was the public employee. In itself, the increase in public employment from 45,000 in 1930 to 70,000 in 1940 was a boon to a distressed class eager for respectable white-collar employment. But it came at a price. Chapter Seven focuses on the public employee. libre, June 19, 1939, p. 1. See also ?La clase media debe de estar con Almaz?n,? El Hombre libre, August 4, 1939, p. 3. 193 Chapter 7: Public Employees: Beleaguered, Gender-Challenged and Corporativized (1920-1940) Introduction In the Porfiriato, expanding bureaucracies began to shift the notion of middle class from one comprised of liberal professionals and artisan proprietors to one dominated by public and private office workers. After the Revolution, office work became synonymous with the middle class although disputes raged over whether or not new entrants to this expanded sector qualified for middle-class status. Controversy particularly focused on the middle-class status of working women, whose growing presence in the office represented a challenge to male prerogatives and notions of propriety, honor, and merit. In the early years of the 1920s, both male and female office workers faced frequent layoffs, firings, and unpaid wages. Beginning in 1925, the government began a long process of corporativizing the public sector worker: it introduced pensions, insurance, access to home mortgages, cooperatives, and state-controlled unionization in return for loyalty secured through these privileges and increased surveillance in a period of socio-political conflict.571 Between 1920 and 1940, the number of public employees in the Federal District increased from 15,000 to 69,300. The percentage of female employees rose much more dramatically than that of men. The number of empleadas jumped from 171 to 571 I use the word ?corporativize? to refer to a political process whereby a particular group (in this case, public employees) becomes a corporate unit attached to the state. The Mexican state made public employees into a privileged group in return for loyalty. 194 16, 400.572 These public employees would become a major backbone of the official state party. The Public Employee in the Early 1920s The municipal and federal governments would have liked to focus on their white-collar employees as a means of ensuring their loyalty, improving their alleged spendthrift behavior, and responding to their demands. Attempts were made to introduce savings banks, stores for basic consumer goods at controlled prices, and homeownership through access to easy loans and property.573 But the state was hardpressed to pay their salaries let alone resolve the problems of soaring prices and rents.574 Although the government received revenue from oil exports, other forms of taxation were difficult and Mexico suffered as a pariah nation denied recognition and credit by major countries, particularly the United States. Although the signing of the de la Huerta-Lamont treaty in 1922 was a step toward U.S. recognition in its scheduling of debt repayment to foreign bondholders, the treaty meant the siphoning 572 M?xico, Secretar?a de Fomento, Oficina Tipogr?fica, Censo de Poblaci?n 1921; M?xico, Secretar?a de Fomento, Oficina Tipogr?fica, Censo de Poblaci?n 1930, M?xico, Secretar?a de Fomento, Oficina Tipogr?fica, Censo de Poblaci?n 1940. Female employees represented 24% of all public employees. Susie Porter finds that the percentage of female employees in government administration grew from 28% in 1932 to 31% in 1938. Susie S. Porter, ?Espacios burocr?ticos, normas de feminidad e identidad de la clase media en M?xico durante la d?cada de 1930,? in Historia de mujeres y hombres en perspectiva de g?nero, M?xico siglos XIX y XX, eds. Mar?a Teresa Fern?ndez Aceves, Susie Porter, and Carmen Ramos Escand?n (M?xico, DF: CIESAS, 2006), 194. 573 In 1919, the municipality announced the creation of a savings bank for its employees. ?Hay que realiza la gran idea,? Bolet?n Municipal, August 1, 1919, 485-486, ACHM; ?El ahorro es dignificaci?n y es libertad,? Bolet?n Municipal, October 12, 1923, 413-414, AHCM. In 1922, Obreg?n ordered the division of the property around the old horsetrack of Peralvillo (ex-hipodromo del Peralvillo) at the north end of the city in order to establish a neighborhood for employees and workers. With a low price of 1.50 pesos per square meter to be paid off in five yearly installments, the lots quickly sold. By the middle of 1923, no properties were left. Berra Stoppa, ?La expansi?n de la Ciudad de M?xico,? 212. 574 ?Triste situaci?n del empleado p?blico,? Omega, September 13, 1921, p. 1, 4; ?Costa de Vida 1923,? AGN, RT, vol. 539, exp.3; ?Costa de Vida 1926,? AGN, RT, vol. 1106, exp. 29. 195 off of a substantial portion of revenue away from Mexico. An editorial in the newspaper El Imparcial coined the phrase ?Put living before paying? (?Primero es vivir que pagar),? arguing that the government had to pay the six or seven back payments it owed its employees before it paid American bankers (?los banqueros americanos?).575 Beleaguered state employees in public demonstrations and private petitions repeated the slogan, ?Primero es vivir que pagar.? While financial crisis affected all levels of society, contemporary commentators often remarked that the economic situation hit the middle class the hardest. In his study of early twentieth-century Peru, David Parker similarly shows how middle-class employees claimed to suffer more from inflation than manual workers (obreros). Self identified members of the middle class believed they had an intrinsic right to a certain standard of living, to remaining within particular boundaries of decency, and to educate their children to preserve those standards and boundaries.576 Mexicans repeated the same arguments. In 1921, the right-wing newspaper Omega decried the ten percent salary reduction suffered by public employees, the ?servants of the Nation.? No other triumphant revolution or constituted government had so debased the situation of the public employee. The rich could survive and resist ?the foolish aims of the pseudo-socialists and revolutionaries,? while workers recovered their rights and obtained new ones.577 But 575 ?Primero es vivir que pagar,? Excelsior, May 7, 1924, AGN, O-C, vol. 313, exp. 813-E-51, fs. 9. 576 David Parker, ?White Collar Lima, 1910-1929: Commercial Employees and the Rise of the Peruvian Middle Class,? Hispanic American Historical Review 72/1 (February 1992): 47-72. 577 ?Triste situaci?n del empleado p?blico,? Omega, September 13, 1921, p. 1, 4. See also ?En defensa de los empleados p?blicos,? Omega, November 11, 1922, p. 1, 4; ?Reina gran disgusto entre los empleados municipales,? Cronos, September 5, 1922, 1a, p. 1, 5. In his defense, Municipal President Dr. Miguel Alonzo Romero explained that the failure to pay employee salaries was due to the vast 196 the middle class, the gears of the administration of public services, felt the brunt of the crisis. They lacked the right to strike, but did they want to? To strike went against their principles of order and public interest. Public and private protest in 1924 mounted among public sector workers when military rebellion plunged the country into civil war. A key sector of generals backed ex-finance minister Adolfo de la Huerta in his opposition to ?lvaro Obreg?n?s imposition of Plutarco El?as Calles as president. So grave was the situation that Obreg?n himself took to the battlefield to save his government. Of course, the government went broke. It suspended debt-repayment to foreign bondholders and only managed to pay soldiers? salaries with a loan from William Doheny of Standard Oil.578 While US government recognition, recently awarded upon the signing of the Bucareli Agreements, helped to assure a government victory over the rebels by providing arms, white-collar employees suffered, spoke up, and organized. ?Primero es vivir que pagar? became their oft-repeated slogan. In 1924, the Department of Finance admitted that federal employees had sacrificed up to 50 percent of the value of their salaries in delayed paychecks.579 Newspapers warned that ?hunger has made its sinister appearance in the homes of sums of money being directed toward public services. Public services, however, were also in disorder as a result of the city?s huge deficit of over three million pesos. Memorias del Ayuntamiento 1922, 42, AHCM; 578 On the de la Huerta rebellion and its fiscal consequences, see Linda B. Hall, Oils, Banks and Politics: The United States and Postrevolutionary Mexico, 1917-1924 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), 158-179. Also Carmen Collado Herrera, Empresarios y pol?ticos, entre la restauraci?n y la revoluci?n, 1920-1924 (M?xico, DF: Instituto Nacional de Estudios Hist?ricos de la Revoluci?n Mexicana, 1996), 66-69. 579 Fondo Fideicomiso Archivos Plutarco El?as Calles y Fernando Torreblanca, Mexico City [FAPEC], Archivo Fernando Torreblanca, Fondo Alvaro Obreg?n [FAO], f. 11, s. 040100, g. 30, exp. 214, inv. 4749, leg. 1, f. 4-5. 197 this important sector of our middle classes.?580 The Association of Federal and Commercial Employees (Asociacion General de Empleados Federales y de Comercio) lamented that ?more than five thousands families? were without food, medications, and tramfare to get to work. They had lost the ?most elementary rudiments of delicacy and shame.? They took to mass rallies in the El Toreo plaza and at the Nacional Front?n building.581 In 1925, the National Resistance League of Public Employees Against Exploitation (Liga de Resistencia de Empleados P?blicos Contra la Explotaci?n) rallied to the defense of the middle class ignored by recent government efforts to ?dignify? the campesino.582 The league warned the new Calles administration that the government had to meet its demands if it wanted to ensure the loyalty of public employees.583 Yet these workers were divided over tactics and loathe to imitate the militant unionization of the working class. When violence erupted in a rally at El Toreo Plaza, a group of employees wrote to President Obreg?n: ?We energetically protest all forms of violence, public pressure, and scandal. As ?honorable servants of the nation,? they were obliged to conserve an attitude of serenity, prudence and civility in order to keep the authorities? respect and confidence. A letter from the Department of Communications and Public Works supported them. ?The idea to protest,? it claimed, 580 ?Las decenas de los empleados," Revista de Revistas, April 13, 1924, p. 3. 581 AGN, IPS, vol. 30, exp. 53, fs. 1-7 (May 10, 1924). Photographs of the protests show men in suits and ties assembled at El Toreo Plaza. See Revista de Revistas, May 18, 1924, p. 7-8. On the Nacional Front?n rally, see ?Con un escandalo termino ayer la session de la Asociaci?n de Empleados Federales y de Comercio.? El Democrata. June 13, 1924, AGN, IPS, vol. 30, exp. 53, fs. 1-7. 582 AGN, Informaci?n Pol?ticas y Sociales [IPS[, vol. 296, exp. 72, fs. n/a (May 19, 1925). 583 ?Los sin trabajo tuverion ayer un m?tin y una manifestaci?n,? El D?a Espa?ol, April 17, 1925. See also AGN, IPS, vol. 6, exp. 14, fs. 39. 198 ?germinated among some bad servants of the government.?584 The letters reveal a particular conception of the public white-collar employee. Unlike the working-class protestors, they were not uncouth and aggressive, but respectful citizens in search of peaceful solutions. At least in the private sector, employers played upon these distinctions: the Compania Tel?fonos Ericsson supported a management-friendly Catholic association among phone operators who could claim ?se?orita? status in contrast to the unruly, immoral obreras associated with the anarchist-led General Confederation of Workers (Confederaci?n General de Trabajadores, or CGT).585 One option was to appeal directly to the president as a private citizen in need. Hundreds besieged the president with telegrams. Emilio Nava needed 324 pesos in back pay to support his wife and two children. Manuel and Maria Luis Irigoyen, both employees of the Secretaria de Educaci?n and residents of Santa Maria La Ribera, needed the same to attend to ?urgent family matters.? Sofia Garciduenas, typist in the Secretaria de Industria y Comercio, wanted the $244 owed her for April and May to take care of her sick mother. Carmen Iriarte, a shorthand secretary in the Departamento de la Contralor?a needed her pay to intern her mother in a sanitarium.586 President Obreg?n had a single response to all petitioners: he ?could 584 AGN, ?lvaro Obreg?n y El?as Plutaro Calles [OC], vol. 313, exp. 813-E-51, fs. 7 (May 12, 1924 and May 13, 1924). 585 Susie Porter, ?De Obreras, se?oritas y empleadas; culturas de trabajo en la Ciudad de M?xico, 1920-1940,? (Paper presented to the Seminario de la Historia Social, Colegio de M?xico, M?xico, DF, September 29, 2011). 586 AGN, O-C, vol. 313, exp. 813-E-51, fs. 4 (July 30, 1924 and August 2, 1924). For more telegrams, see AGN, O-C, vol. 313, exp. 813-E-51, fs. 9. 199 not make exceptions in delayed pay because he received millions of the same requests daily and could not attend to them all as he desired.?587 Candido Cordero, Beleaguered Public Employee In December 1925, the play Candido Cordero opened at the Teatro Virginia Fabregas. I have alluded to its characters in Chapter Four. Written by the prominent avant garde playwright, 29 year old Julio Jimenez Rueda, it was a farce built around popular stereotypes.588 A critique of the government?s inability to care for its own workers, the play was also a nightmare expressing the anxieties of middle-class men as they perceived women?s invasion of their work space, an alleged deterioration of standards of merit in favor of patronage and personalism, and the inability of the traditional breadwinner to sustain his family. ?The government owes us two paychecks,? Candido Cordero tells the rent collector at the opening of the play. Cordero has no ?Henessy? to offer the rent collector and makes up a lie that his friends drank it up yesterday. Cordero must serve him tequila, the drink of the poor. The rent collector gets the last of Cordero?s cigarettes. They both agree that the lottery is the only option for the struggling middle class. Candido Cordero has been unemployed for six months. His broken watch symbolizes his broken manhood. Cordero?s family survives on their small savings and the salary of his daughter Consuelo, also a government worker. They have 587 AGN, O-C, vol. 313, exp. 813-E-51, fs. 3 (July 14, 1924). 588 Julio Jim?nez Rueda, Candido Cordero, empleado p?blico; farsa en tres actos (M?xico, DF: Tallers gr?ficos de la naci?n, 1928). 200 pawned precious accoutrements of middle-class status like their piano. Cordero assures his wife that the Minister has told him that at the first vacancy the office will call him back to work. His wife scorns him for being so naive. Cordero commiserates with his friend Rodriguez who has also just been fired. ?Twenty years of labor, incessant work, absolute punctuality. The Government is a pig,? Cordero cries out in anger. Rodr?guez agrees. Discussing the state of affairs, they lament that the ?government has no money and doesn?t fulfill its promises.? The two friends talk of alternatives that will make them independent entrepreneurs. Cordero fancies using his remaining savings to open a tobacco shop. Rodr?guez is forever dreaming up moneymaking schemes involving the invention of new gadgets. It is not the ?Ministro,? but Cordero?s daughter Consuelo who gets him a post in a lower rank in another government office. The office is full of the chatter and machinations of young women, more interested in gossip, painting their nails, discussing the movies, the fashions and their boyfriends than in work. The typist Coti reads a novel she has received from her boyfriend. Arriving late and sleepy to work, her coworker Flora plucks her eyebrows and recounts the wonderful time she had last evening dancing till three in the morning at a club. Flora does not have to worry about arriving late, she claims, because she was dancing with a friend of the boss. Coti and Flora admit that through the favor of their bosses, they can rise in the office hierarchy. These were figures of popular culture and the mostly male imagination: women worked not out of need but to spend frivolously and, in fact, they hardly worked at all. Readers of the Excelsior newspaper followed the antics of ?The 201 Secretary that Does Not Work?.589 Young and slim, she was more interested in fashion and dancing than work.590 The conservative Omega newspaper mercilessly criticized the female employee. She did little or nothing in the office. She was a dangerous beauty, ?delicate and svelte with her mouth a small purple nest in the shape of a heart.? The female employee ensnared helpless, decent men at work and rendered the poor empleado ?without energy or virility? a ?toy? in her capricious banalities. The miserable male employee with an empty stomach and worn out suit, seeking an office job, had to pay homage to these empleadas. For the love his family, he had to ?bow down to that prostitute.? To behold a modern office was to look upon ?a delicate selection of pretty faces and idle hands? that covered ?rot and filth.? 591 The middle class family had viewed office work as a safe and reputable haven for their daughters who were obliged to work prior to marriage. This transnational phenomenon was necessarily negotiated in local space.592 But employers in Mexico City, as elsewhere, did not take their female employees seriously. They viewed women?s work as a transitory stage before marriage, or a temporary reality to help support their families, or a means to earn a little extra cash to buy frivolous things.593 589 ?La Taquigrafia que no Trabaja,? Excelsior, September 19, 1937 2a, p. 7. 590 See, for example, Excelsior, January 24, 1923. 591 ?El lastre burocr?tico,? Omega, Dec. 13, 1924, pp. 1, 3; ?Esmaltes color de fueto. La se?orita secretar?a,? Feb. 4, 1922, pp. 1, 4. 592 Katharina von Ankum, ?Introduction,? Women in the Metropolis: Gender and Modernity in Weimar Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 4. 593 For Chile, see Elisabeth Hutchison who argues that bosses expected female workers to quit upon marriage and justified their lower wages and lack of work protections because were ?daughters of good families,? and therefore simply contributing to larger family incomes. Elisabeth Quay Hutchinson, Labors Appropriate to Their Sex: Gender, Labor, and Politics in Urban Chile, 1900-1930 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001), 184. 202 In fact, employment files record how women were often sole caretakers of older or sick family members.594 The new empleada as stereotyped in the media presented a conundrum: was she the daughter of the middle class or was she a sleazy interloper from the lower classes? Who were these new girls with cropped hair who had shed their ankle-length skirts, long-sleeved blouses and high collars for high-heels, stockings, short-sleeved blouses, and skirts that exposed their legs?595 Cordero?s daughter Consuelo was a proper hard-working se?orita but his other daughter Manuela was a chica moderna, hot on the heels of the latest fashion in hopes of becoming a movie star. Candido Cordero represented a new type in popular culture: the male employee emasculated by routine work in an office hierarchy infused with new cultural behaviors. He believes his superiors will one day recognize his honorable and faithful service. A secretary points out that he may be a ?model employee,? but he still earns 300 pesos a month after thirty years of service.596 He likely knows that patronage has historically provided access to public service, but he comes to perceive that its modes and clientele have changed. The newspaper Omega complained that For Canada, see Kate Boyer who argues that male employers saw female clerical worker as earning extra spending money and searching for husbands. Kate Boyer, ?Neither Forget nor Remember Your Sex: Sexual Politics in the Early Twentieth-Century Canadian Office,? Journal of Historical Geography 92/2 (2003): 222. For Mexico, see Susie Porter who discusses the socio-political belittling of female office workers as morally lacking and working for money to spend on frivolities. Susie Porter, ?Espacios burocraticos,? 199-200. 594 For example, AHCM, caja 980, exp. 248 (1919). 595 ?Lo que va de ayer a hoy in cuesti?n de faldas: La taqu?grafa antigua y la moderna,? El Universal, February 5, 1928. For photos of women?s fashion at the time, see Fototeca Nacional del Instituo Nacional de Antropolg?a e Historia [FN-INAH], Fondo Casasola [FC], c. 38A03, no. 96940 (1936); FN-INAH, FC, c. 38A04, no. 76505 (1930-35); FN-INAH, FC, c. 38A04, no. 79859 (1934). 596 Jim?nez Rueda, Candido Cordero, 75. 203 only those favored by ?influential people? and ?friends of the cause? got government positions. Moreover, those who got them barely knew how to read and write.597 Cordero notes that his boss drinks heavily and falls in love with the secretaries. Pepito, a coworker, dresses stylishly, flirts with Coti and Flora, and spends his nights teaching girls how to dance.598 He is representative of the ?f?fi,? the young empleado who shows off a new suit each month, manages to drive a car, and delights in the company of his female co-workers.599 Omega called the ?fifis? ?elegant men? who had spawned a ?social plague of immorality and injustice.?600 For his part, Cordero worries that his age will pose an obstacle to his finding a new job. He comes to realize that his ?honor? and merit no longer serve him.601 The market offered bureaucrats like Cordero relief. Numerous products ? many from the United States ? promised to boost the energy of the middle class man suffering from ?mental depletion? and ?neurasthenia? allegedly caused by nervous 597 ?El lastre burocr?tico,? Omega, December 13, 1924, p. 1, 3. Research on Brazil has concluded that even government efforts to undermine patronage as part of a modernization strategy, such as the introduction of a competitive examination (consurso) to decide who obtained federal government jobs, did not minimize the continued reliance on connections (pedido). Brian Owensby, Intimate Ironies: Modernity and the Making of Middle-Class Lives in Brazil (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 80-88. Similarly, the professional requirement of a diploma represented a new ?modern? bridge between merit and patronage rather than completely transforming old patronage and clientelist models. Cristina Peixoto Mehrtens, ?Urban Space and Politics: Constructing Social Identity and the Middle Class in S?o Paulo, Brazil, 1930s-1940s,? (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Miami, 2000), 143. Despite Omega?s disqualification of new public employees as ignorant, new educational requirements in Mexico undoubtedly had a similar effect in Mexico. 598 Jim?nez Rueda, Candido Cordero, 63. 599 Jim?nez Rueda, Candido Cordero, 14. 600 ?Mujeres de lujo y hombres elegantes,? Omega, June 17, 1932, p. 1, 3. 601 Jimenez Rueda, Candido Cordero, 87. 204 strain and excessive mental effort.602 The newspapers entertained with new cartoon characters who escape the routine of office work by indulging in fantasy. In El Se?or Pesta?a, created by Andres Audiffred and Hip?lito Zendejas, characters invent a time machine to travel to inhospitable deserts and cannibal-infested islands; they joust as knights in the Middle Ages and witness the French Revolution. In fact, they are public employees who speak a colloquial, provincial Spanish indicative of their immigrant status.603 They are part of the social opening of office work that represented such a challenge to long-time employees like Candido Cordero who had suffered the debacle of Porfirian stability and propriety ? a stability and propriety now inflated with nostalgia. Then disaster strikes in the office of Candido Cordero. Coti and Flora accuse his daughter Consuelo of sleeping with the boss. In Cordero?s eyes, Coti and Flora lack middle-class decency in their personal behavior, but in this instance, they transform themselves into proper ?se?oritas? to accuse Consuelo of an unacceptable breach of morality. Consuelo admits that she is friendly with her boss, but denies an amorous relationship. Nonetheless, Candido Cordero feels he must resign. He cannot defend his honor, nor that of his daughter and his family for which he is responsible. He forces Consuelo to resign as well. 602 The company Ovomaltina promised that its powder drink would boost the energy of tired individuals and ?fill up [their] mental depletion.? Excelsior, Jan. 24, 1923; A manufacturer of automatic-playing pianos advertised its product for the ?the brain of the intellectual worker,? who in times of rest supposedly needed the stimulation of ?perfectly executed piano playing.? El Universal, Aug. 31, 1924, 1a, p. 12. For the incidence and meaning of neurasthenia in the U.S., see Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) 14. 603 Juan Manuel Aurreocoechea and Armando Bartra, Puros cuentos: La historia de la historieta en Mexico, 1874-1934 (Mexico, D.F.: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1988), 248. 205 A case recently uncovered by Susie Porter reveals the greater complexity of such a situation that could develop when more actors became involved. She recounts the story of two telephone operators fired in 1927 by the Ericsson Telephone Company (Empresa de Tel?fonos de Ericsson) for allegedly being pregnant. Through the anarchist worker confederation, the CGT, they challenged the company and filed a case with the government arbitration board (Junta de Conciliaci?n y Arbitraje). The telephone company insisted that the women be dismissed because it was their custom to hire only single women without children and because the presence of pregnant women in the office caused a ?scandal? offensive to the other ?se?oritas.? These se?oritas belonged to the white-collar Catholic association approved by the company management. The pregnant women identified themselves as ?obreras.? The state ruled in their favor: not only women but also mothers had rights as workers and the Family Law of 1917 had abolished all distinctions between illegitimate and legitimate children. Hence whether these workers were married or not was moot.604 Candido Cordero does not imagine a collective defense of any kind. He defends his individual honor and that of his family, and in this defense, he orders his daughter out of the work place. Frustrated by his impotence in the workplace, Cordero tries to assert his dominance in the home. ?I am tired of obeying. Now I want to give orders. I am the boss of the house!? he yells.605 No one pays attention to him. His wife and his daughter Manuela have always criticized him mercilessly and spent his money. At one point, his wife called him a ?good for nothing? and beat him 604 Susie Porter, ?De Obreras, se?oritas y empleadas; culturas de trabajo en la Ciudad de M?xico, 1920-1940.? 605 Jimenez Rueda, Candido Cordero, 28. 206 up.606 The husband hen-pecked by his consumer-crazed wife had also become a literary type. In a short story published in Omega in 1922, Don Ram?n?s wife searches his pockets to make sure he has hidden no money from her. When his wife discovers 60 centavos unaccounted for, she accuses him of having a sweetheart. Calling him a criminal for robbing bread from his children, she begins to suffocate him. Their servant intervenes and don Ram?n assures his wife of his fidelity. He promises to buy her fabric for a new dress. Later, she again accuses him of having a lover when she smells lotion that has spilled on him in a barbershop. Depressed, he returns to the office with thoughts of suicide, but the sweet voice of the typist interrupts his morbid plan. Her stockings, bare arms, and low neckline distract him from his worries.607 Candido Cordero never returned to the office. His daughter Consuelo returned and she became the family breadwinner. According to statistics, by 1938, 74 percent of female workers in public administration were the principal providers for their families.608 The image of the frivolous temptress did not lose its punch, but feminist voices spoke up loudly for the rights and dignity of these workers. Meanwhile, in 1925, Candido Cordero?s job was taken by a consumer- and girl-crazed fifi. 606 Jimenez Rueda, Candido Cordero, 21. 607 ?Bocetos estrafalarios. Las mujeres celosas,? Omega, July 29, 1922, p.1. 608 A federal census of employees in 1938 revealed that 88 percent of men and 74 percent of women supported dependents. Porter, ?Espacios burocr?tios,? 195. 207 The Corporativization of the Public Employee (1925-1940) Beginning in 1925, President Plutarco El?as Calles took steps to rationalize public administration. The government sought greater control over public employees by providing greater job security, job benefits, increased surveillance and obligatory political organization. Responding to employees? grievances and the specter of disloyalty provoked by his attack on Catholics, Calles initiated the corporativization of the public employee who in return for ?privileges? would be obliged to submit to official politics. The process intensified in the Maximato (1929-34) and the administration of L?zaro C?rdenas (1934-1940). Calles? Civil Service Law (Ley de Servicio Civil) protected ?the public employee against the frequent possibilities of unjustifiable destitution.? Employees got the right to indemnification as well as to medical and pharmaceutical assistance. The law placed restraints on the political voice of employees by refusing them the right to strike. State workers had ?a juridical obligation to fidelity to the state.? The law did, however, permit associations that represented professional interests and acted in defense of its members.609 Further legislation under the Calles and Portes Gil governments (1928-1930) initiated social security benefits. The Social Security Law (Ley de Seguro Social) offered compensation for work-related accidents, funds for old-age pensions, life insurance, and benefits for workers? dependents. The legislation was a means of inculcating habits of savings, thrift and prevision ? albeit forcibly ? and responding 609 AGN, L?zaro C?rdeans del R?o [LCR], vol. 881, exp. 545.2/1, fs. n/a (No date). 208 to the oft-repeated charge that lack of savings was a serious flaw in the Mexican middle class.610 Deductions forced employees to economize further and to practice, at least on the surface, an esteemed value befitting middle-class Mexicans as envisioned by their national leaders. At the same time, insurance and pension funds gave the government power over a part of the employee?s salary. As in Britain, deductions acted as a form of discipline. Daniel Defert explains how insurance there in the nineteenth century became a new channel for concentrating capital and controlling workers. Taking part of a worker?s pay ensured more regular and punctual attendance while disciplining consumption and encouraging individual responsibility.611 However, in Mexico insurance had deep historical roots in more egalitarian artisan guilds and mutual aid societies. Public employees had long sought home ownership as a badge of middle-class status and relief from rent gouging. As early as 1922, President Obreg?n initiated government subsidization of home ownership by selling lots at low prices on easy terms on the grounds of the old racetrack in the Colonia de Peralvillo. These included insurance of the loan and property upon the death of the borrower.612 After 1926, the newly created Civil Pensions and Retirement Fund (Direcci?n de Pensiones Civiles de Retiro, or DGPCR) assumed responsibility for housing issues. The state directly participated in housing construction and awarded credit to public employees for the 610 ?Las pensiones civiles y militares,? Omega, Sept 17, 1925, p. 1, 4. 611 Daniel Defert, "'Popular Life' and Insurance Technology," in The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, eds. Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, and Peter Miller (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 211-212. 612 See footnote 2. Berra Stoppa, ?La expansi?n de la Ciudad de M?xico,? 212. 209 construction and acquisition of a house.613 The DGPCR authorized loans of a maximum of 10,000 pesos for the purchase of a house and loaned other small amounts to employees to save them from voracious moneylenders.614 In its first three years, the DGPCR claimed to have created more than 4,000 homeowners. By 1930, officials declared that these ?small property holders have the advantage by their modesty of not creating a capitalist caste, but people free from the demand of property owners (rentiers).?615 The government also promoted cooperative societies as a means of solving the economic difficulties confronting the middle and lower classes. Cooperatives also built on a long tradition of mutual aid societies whereby members saved and shared in order to ?improve themselves.?616 As early as 1923, officials established a consumer cooperative for Mexico City municipal employees (Cooperative de Consumos de Empleados Municipales).617 According to officials, the cooperative was the first definitive step on ?the road to [?] spiritual and economic liberation of the employee 613 Mar?a Soledad Cruz Rodr?guez, Crecimiento urbano y procesos sociales in el Distrito Federal (1920-1928) (M?xico, DF: UAM Azcapotzalco, 1994), 144-145. 614 Berra Stoppa, ?La expansi?n de la Ciudad de M?xico,? 213. 615 Estadistica Nacional 1930, 231 cited in Berra Stoppa, ?La expansi?n de la Ciudad de M?xico,? 213. 616 See, for example, Carlos Illades, ?Organizaciones laborales y discurso asociativo en el siglo XIX,? in Ciudad de M?xico: Instituciones, actors socials y conflict politico, 1774-1931, eds. Carlos Illades and Ariel Rodr?guez (Zamora, Mich.: Colegio de Michoacan, 1996); Felipe Arturo ?vila Espinosa, ?La sociedad mutualista y moralizador de obreros del distrito federal (1909-1911), Historia mexicana 43/1 (1993): 117-154; Jos? Woldenberg K., ?Asociaciones artesanas del siglo XIX. Socieded socorros mutuos de impresores, 1874-1875,? Revista mexicana de ciencias pol?ticas y sociales 21/83 (1973): 71-112. 617 ?Hay que realiza la gran idea,? Bolet?n Municipal, August 1, 1919, 485-486, AHCM. 210 that we have for a long time been preaching and trying to correct.?618 Cooperatives were seen as an answer to a much older problem of inequality. The administration declared that the cooperative associations? greatest benefits involved improving the situation of the middle class and the proletariat that had ?justly complained of misery and oppression under the plutocracy to which they had been subjected since the time of the Conquest.?619 While drawing on old mutualist traditions, the cooperative was also promoted by a contemporary transnational movement.620 Prior to his presidency, Calles traveled to Europe to study cooperatives. A subsequent pamphlet published by the SEP (Secretaria de Educaci?n P?blica) explained how European cooperatives taught the value of unity and working together that were critical to solving the problems of labor struggles and class conflict.621 Promoters of cooperatives also shared European economists? convictions that cooperatives were vital to the middle class. To build a strong nation, the middle class needed to learn to unify and work toward a common cause. One official writing as a member of the middle class claimed that cooperatives would affirm ?our solidarity and strong action.? Declaring that ?it is our class [?] where the strength of the people lies,? he urged fellow citizens to fight and sacrifice themselves to break ?once and for all the long-time indifference toward civic matters 618 ?El primer beneficio de la cooperativa de consumos de empleados municipales,? Bolet?n Municipal, October 19, 1923, 414, AHCM. See also ?Otro fase del cooperativismo,? Bolet?n Municipal, November 9, 1923, 481, AHCM. 619 Informe de sociedades cooperativas, AGN, Ramo Trabajo [RT], vol. 320, exp. 15. 620 On the transnational discussion of cooperatives and the middle class, see L. M?ffelmann, Orientaci?n de la clase media (Barcelona-Buenos Aires: Editorial Labor, 1926). 621 ?Estamos capacitados para la cooperaci?n? Propaganda Cooperativa V (M?xico, DF: Publicaciones de la Secretar?a de Educaci?n P?bica, 1925), 9-11. 211 on the part of our cultured (culta) middle class, of which public employees form a small part.? 622 The fledgling cooperative movement under Calles was a forerunner of the cooperative stores, hospitals, credit banks and housing opportunities that would later become available to public employees as a corporation, a beneficiary of privileges awarded by the state to this group. In this case, the state-sponsored cooperative movement would not so much encourage middle-class autonomy and self-sufficiency as government dependence. The state?s need to secure public employee loyalty through creating dependence intensified when in 1926 the National League of Religious Defense organized an economic boycott against Calles? assault on the Catholic church. The state?s response was not so much the granting of privileges as the institution of surveillance and obligatory compliance. Calles?s supporters responded to the boycott calling on colleagues to condemn the Catholic clergy that supposedly interfered with Mexico?s progress. A group of public employees called on co-workers to form a united front against the church. 623 They formed a pro-Constitution organization of public employees (Uni?n de Empleados P?blicos Pro-Constituci?n). Denouncing the association, the church hierarchy claimed it required employees to face an ?inquisitorial interrogation.? Employees had to answer questions about their religious beliefs and practices. The union forced men associated with the Knights of Columbus to renounce their 622 La fuerza de los pueblos est? en la clase media,? Bolet?n Municipal, October 26, 1923, p. 469-470. 623 A los empleados del gobierno, AGN, IPS, vol. 7, exp. 3, fs. 154 (July 28, 1926). 212 membership. Individuals who did not comply would lose their jobs. The church worried that those condemned would waiver in their convictions and submit to the Union.624 Devout public employees sought advice from prominent priests. They wanted to know how to respond to a questionnaire issued by the Calles administration. Employees had to answer five questions: l) Are you a member of the National League of Religious Defense? 2) Are you a member of the Knights of Columbus? 3) Are you loyal to the government? 4) Do you approve of the politics of the government? 5) Do you criticize acts of the government? In response, the priests emphasized two principles: ?first, that no Catholic must approve the religious persecution or feel obliged to renounce his convictions; and second, that without denying his/her faith, nobody is obliged to accuse himself/herself.? Catholic employees were to answer ?no? to questions 1, 2, and 5. They did not have to answer question 4, but the priests advised their most prudent answer would be ?yes.?625 Spy reports indicate that prudence did not stop harassment within the administration between 1926 and 1929. In a letter to Calles, employees denounced their Catholic colleagues.626 One employee outed high-ranking officials as practicing 624 Fondo Fideicomiso Archivos Plutarco El?as Calles y Fernando Torreblanca, Mexico City [FAPEC], Archivo Fernando Torreblanca, Fondo Plutarco El?as Calles [FPEC], exp. 61, inv. 5121, leg. 1, fs. 25 (1926); AHAM, Base Jos? Mar?a y del R?o, caja 43, exp. 28 (December 12, 1926). 625 AHAM, Base Pascual D?az Barreto, caja 41, exp. 2. (August 20, 1926). 626 For Catholics working in the Banco de Mexico, see AGN, IPS, vol. 296, exp. 72, fs. n/a (August 17, 1926). For members of the Knights of Columbus working in department of Public Welfare (Benefencia P?blica), see AGN, IPS, vol. 296, exp. 72, fs. n/a (August 28, 1926).The newspaper ?El chinaco? published a list of names of public employees suspected of belonging to the Knights of Columbus. See AGN, IPS, vol. 296, exp. 72, fs. n/a (December 23, 1926). The same archival file includes another list of employees who were ?spies of the clergy, members of the Religious Defense League and who insult[ed] the President.? September 10, 1926. 213 Catholics, including the head of the Department of Technical Education, engineer Simon Sierra, described as ?a complete devotee of the Virgin of Guadalupe,? and member of the Knights of Columbus.627 A government customs auditor was accused of having a ?double personality? as a public employee and a principal member of the Catholic faith.628 Employees of the Department of Communications and Public Works denounced workers at the city?s Central Telegraph Office as ?addicts of Catholic fanaticism.?629 They reported that the assistant head of the office openly declared that he ?would prefer to die than recant [his] religion.? Others were denounced for distributing religious propaganda and belonging to groups like the Vela Perpetua and the Knights of Columbus.?630 An employee of the Department of Statistics denounced a man he met on his daily commute to work as one who ?shows no embarrassment in publicly manifesting his sympathies for the rebel movement [Cristeros].?631 Some Catholic employees renounced their religious activities in order to save their jobs. A few even denounced fellow Catholic co-workers. Agent Number 17 found Catalina Maya, a forty-five year old employee of the Secretary of Finance, exhausted and sick in bed. Maya confessed that she and various young female co- workers had taken part in church activities, including religious gatherings in the 627 AGN, IPS, vol. 107, exp. 24; fs. 1-2 (April 17, 1929). 628 AGN, IPS, vol. 235, exp. 27, fs. 2-5 (March 14, 1929). See also AGN, IPS, vol. 235, exp. 27 fs. 9- 10 and fs. 16-17. 629 AGN, IPS, vol. 229, exp. 25, fs. 9-10 (June 1, 1927). 630 AGN, IPS, vol. 299, exp. 25, fs. 13-14, n.d. 631 AGN, IPS, vol. 235, exp. 26, fs. 2-6, n.d. Agents of IPS investigated the man and did not find him expressing pro-religious sentiments. 214 house of a Mrs. Lascur?in.632 However, for the past year she had ceased her involvement because she feared losing her job. She needed her salary of four pesos a month to attend to her illness and the needs of her son.633 Esther Batalla collaborated with Agent Number 17 after she discontinued distributing Catholic propaganda to co- workers. Batalla ceased her activities, noting that she and her co-workers were being watched, and that firings had become the ?order of the day.? She admitted that Archbishop Mora y del R?o had demanded all Catholic women ?renounce their positions in order to not serve the Government that persecutes the Church.? But she had decided to remain at work and continue spreading propaganda because she felt convinced that she could serve the cause by leafleting. However, she could no longer continue her leafleting for fear of losing a salary that supported her small child and an old aunt.634 The government obliged its employees to join the National Revolutionary Party (Partido Nacional Revolucionario, or PNR), the government?s political party formed in 1929, the same year the government and the church signed accords closing the first chapter in their struggle. The government deducted not only party dues but 632 Mrs. Lascur?in was likely from the Lascur?in family living in the neighborhood of Santa Mar?a la Ribera. See Chapter Two. 633 The file also includes a list of employees in the Department of Finance (Secretar?a de Hacienda) who were accused of being clerics and working against the government. AGN, IPS, vol. 2022B, exp. 33, fs. n/a (September 23, 1927). 634 AGN, IPS, vol. 2022B, exp. 33, fs. n/a (September 23, 1927). Political events during the Reforma (1854-1876) had also forced Catholics to betray their religious convictions to save their careers. In his study of nineteenth-century Oaxaca, Overmyer-Vel?zquez describes how middle-class professionals, namely lawyers and government officials, recanted their behavior in letters to the bishop. Such repentance of oaths of allegiance to liberal doctrines exposed the challenges to the state?s secular modernizing agenda. See Mark Overmyer-Vel?zquez, Visions of the Emerald City: Modernity, Tradition, and the Formation of Porfirian Oaxaca, Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 77-78. 215 also subscription fees to the party newspaper from employees? paychecks. The move was likely a way to ensure loyalty in the wake of Jos? Vasconcelos? 1929 anti- reelection campaign challenge to official politics: the campaign drew support from many middle-class Mexicans, particularly devout Catholics. The conservative press attacked the deductions. The Omega newspaper argued that ?poor official servants can no longer support the deductions.? Their salaries were already insufficient to maintain a family and dress ?in decorous fashion? or pay for the monthly tram pass. Omega denounced the deductions as a bribe.635 In the same year, the officially- approved Association of Government Employees (Asociaci?n de Empleados de Gobierno) spoke out against the mistreatment of employees by the PNR. The association complained it had been the ?whip? of public employees. It criticized the unjustifiable firings of long-time employees who were replaced by ?neophyte(s) recommended by the National Party.?636 In September 1936, President L?zaro C?rdenas announced the formation of the National Federation of State Workers (Federaci?n Nacional de Trabajadores del Estado, or FNTE). It would represent all government workers and defined itself as an organization of workers (trabajadores or obreros), rather than employees (empleados). FNTE members did not enjoy one of the most important rights given to organized labor. Under a newly-modified Constitution, C?rdenas denied state workers, including the military, the right to strike. The FNTE later became the 635 Los pobres servidores oficiales ya no soportan los descuentos,? Omega, October 10, 1930, p. 1; ?La campa?a de las cien mil subscripciones y la hombr?a de los empleados p?blicos,? El Hombre libre, June 4, 1931, p. 1, 4; ?Otra mordida a los empleados p?blicos para sostenimiento del ?rgano oficial,? Omega, March 28, 1935, p. 1. 636 The association?s motto was ?For the Dignity of the Employee? (Por la dignificaci?n del empleado). 216 FSTSE, discussed in Chapter Six, that represented public employees in the PRM party. Hostility to the new reforms came from various sectors across the political spectrum. The Confederation of the Middle Class (Confederaci?n de la Clase Media, or CCM) fought for the right to strike. The FNTE itself called for this right with support from many employees. These employees felt comfortable as part of Mexico City?s militant labor movement. Particularly the teachers and members of the rank- and-file military had a long history of radicalism. But not all public employees supported the right to strike. Some continued to abjure association with working-class movements and their methods of dealing with employers and the state.637 They instead supported the Civil Service Law that regulated hours, wages, pensions, and promotions.638 In 1937, C?rdenas compromised with these distinct approaches. He introduced a statute that divided public employees into two groups based on their salaries and placement in the decision-making hierarchy. ?Base workers? (trabajadores de base) were those at the lower end of the pay scale who had less autonomy. ?Workers of confidence? (trabajadores de confianza) were defined as those who received better pay and made decisions requiring greater skills and discretion. The trabajadores de base were given the right to strike, but not the trabajadores de confianza.639 637 Brian Owensby makes a similar argument for Brazilian middle-class employees. Brian Owensby, Intimate Ironies: Modernity and the Making of Middle-Class Lives in Brazil (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 166-176. 638 Diane E. Davis, Urban Leviathan: Mexico City in the Twentieth Century (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1994), 89. 639 Diane E. Davis, Discipline and Development: Middle Classes and Prosperity in East Asia and Latin America (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 298-299, ft. 103. 217 Despite their different juridical designations, both types of public workers were members of the FNTE. The organization was incorporated into and became one of the most vocal sectors of the Confederation of Mexican Workers (Confederaci?n de Trabajadores de M?xico, or CTM). In 1938, the FNTE members became organized under the Federation of State Workers? Union (Federaci?n de Sindicatos de Trabajadores al Servicio del Estado), or FSTSE, which became the bureaucratic sector, or popular sector, of the Party of the Mexican Revolution (Partido Revolucionario Mexicano, or PRM).640 The inclusion of state workers in the PRM gave public sector employees a strong voice in national politics, but the forced political allegiance continued to fire up critics in the right-wing press for whom it meant unjustifiable wage deductions, mandatory attendance at party rallies, and for Catholics, an interference with their religious practices. Indeed, many PNR and later PRM events were mandatory for public employees. In 1938, the head of one personnel department warned of consequences for employees who did not show up ?with proper punctuality.? Administrators often obliged employees to attend practice sessions for rallies three times a week.641 Those who failed to attend faced penalties. Raquel C?rdenas Castore?a, a shorthand writer in the Political and Social Information Office, had her salary suspended for three days after three absences from practice. Her boss came to her defense. He asked for the 640 Davis, Urban Leviathan, 88, 90. 641 AGN, IPS, vol. 81, exp. 10, fs. 1 (July 27, 1938). 218 penalty to be lifted, citing her ?capability, competency and dedication at work,? as well as the ?extra hours she put in at the office.?642 Mandatory rallies and parades held on Sundays meant that devout Catholics exposed their religious faith if they opted to attend Mass instead. They had to define their loyalties. Pedro Tinoco, who worked in the Labor Department, was accused of not attending a Sunday rally ?because of his fanatical Catholic beliefs.? Tinoco apparently would ?not miss a Sunday mass for anything? (por nada de esta vida).643 Other Catholics, fearful of being sanctioned or losing their jobs, chose to march under political banners. For conservative critics, the participation of female employees in political rallies threatened their moral decency. The rightwing newspaper El Hombre libre printed women?s complaints about party practices that required them to show up at six o?clock in the morning for events far from the city center. They felt embarrassed by having to carry drums, trumpets and flags. The newspaper printed an exchange between three young women, one of whom complained of being forced to daily ?exercise, prettily, with the empleados, shoulder to shoulder, playing drums and trumpets, and marching to the beat under the order of soldiers.?644 The party required sport uniforms, which consisted of shorts and an open-neck shirt. One of the women dared President C?rdenas to oblige his female family members to parade ?in the shameful suits.? 642 AGN, IPS, vol. 81, exp. 10, fs. 2 (November 6, 1940). 643 AGN, IPS, vol. 3, exp. 36, fs. 5-6 (December 3, 1934). 644 See ?Insisten sobre lo del desfile de las empleadas del gobierno,? El Hombre libre, October 25, 1937, p. 1. 219 The uniforms caused much grief. Omega reported young women participated with tears in their eyes. Their cheeks flushed with embarrassment, they were forced to parade ?semi-nude like circus ballerinas.?645 Another pitied empleadas who felt shame over their deformed legs, ?knock-kneed? and looking like toothpicks. The uniforms, which ?could not be more short,? were ?composed of a blouse that exposes the neck and shoulders and of bloomers, leaving [much] nude.?646 According to critics, the clothing was against the dictates of decency and morality. Female public employees were not only targets of defense but also objects of criticism in the 1930s. Susie Porter has noted that public bashing of women public employees surfaced during moments of economic duress and unusual unemployment, particularly in 1930 and 1937.647 Somewhat surprisingly, the attacks came from the political left, from former defenders of working women like the CGT, and from organizations identified with the government such as the Union of Revolutionary Youth (Uni?n de Jovenes Revolucionarios), who wanted women fired and replaced by young men who ?feel the Revolution in their moral and physical being.?648 To get women removed from offices, the opponents relied on arguments made in the 1920s: women worked only for spending money, they spent it foolishly on frivolities, and were prone to immoral behavior. As in the 1920s, opponents questioned their class status. 645 ?La decencia ha huide de M?xico,? Omega, June 13, 1936, p. 1, 2. 646 ?Es un grave atentado contra el pudor femenino obligar a las empleadas a desfilar semidesnudas,? Omega, September 5, 1936, p. 1, 3. 647 Porter, ?Espacios burocr?ticos.? 648 AGN, LCR, vol. 896, exp. 545.3/274 (August 27, 1935). 220 But women workers expanded their presence in government administration from 16 percent to 33 percent between 1930 and 1940.649 Primarily employed in teaching in the 1920s, in the 1930s they branched out into many ministries, particularly in health and social work. As Susie Porter correctly points out, many played key roles in implementing social reforms.650 They had their champions to offset their detractors. The conservative CMM defended them negatively. Women were the ?base of culture and morality in our Patria,? the group claimed, and it was wrong to criticize those obliged by economic necessity to ?prostitute themselves,? i.e., to work.651 More importantly, with the organization of a vigorous feminist movement supported by the C?rdenas government, women in high administrative positions, delegates to congresses of women workers and campesinas, and women journalists leapt to the defense of women office workers and made no distinction between white collar ?se?oritas? and ?obreras? as they asserted women?s right to work and access to legal rights of protection. To the critics, they responded that 74 percent of female public employees were the sole supporters of their families. Similar to feminists elsewhere, they asserted that women were less corrupt, more punctual, reliable, and efficient workers than men.652 In short, they defended the right of women whose behavior, consumer habits, dress, and social origins might not conform to traditional middle class values. These women and their defenders expanded the boundaries of middle-class identity. 649 M?xico, Secretar?a de Fomento, Oficina Tipogr?fica, Censo de Poblaci?n 1940. 650 Porter, ?Espacios burocr?ticos,? 192 195. 651 Declaraci?n de principios, programa de acci?n y estatutos de la ?Confederaci?n de la Clase Media,? M?xico, DF: n.p, 1936. 652 Porter, ?Espacios burocr?ticos,? 192, 195. 221 Conclusion By 1938, the union of public employees had become a central player in Mexico?s corporate political system under the reformulated PRM party. Pro- C?rdenista employees supported their greater incorporation into the state party. Some eagerly denounced their fellow co-workers who maintained fervent Catholic beliefs, questioning their loyalty to the state. The mandatory party fees and parades irritated some, and outright incensed others, who resented the state?s heavy hand. For male office workers, the cost also included their threatened emasculation as they became dependents of dishonorable bosses and a bankrupt state that could not always pay their salaries. Furthermore, women?s increasing presence in the office femenized the workplace. Despite the reputable nature of the work, women faced the potential questioning of their honor. Fathers, like in the case of Candido Cordero, could no longer protect their daughters? or family?s reputation. Zealot revolutionaries questioned the empleadas? middle-class status and claimed the workplace for men. By 1940, public white-collar workers represented a large sector of Mexico City?s middle class. While other middle-class sectors felt marginalized by the political system, the state gave public employees a special designation. State workers had come a long way from their precarious position in the fledging post-revolutionary governments of the 1920s. They now occupied a prime spot in Mexico?s political future. 222 Conclusion In the Porfiriato, the middle class grew with economic growth, urbanization, and the expansion of state and private sector bureaucracies. Professionals, white- collar employees, small- to medium-sized merchants, and artisan proprietors claimed membership in the growing middle class. Statesmen, social scientists, and journalists considered them as the nation?s future, although they criticized them for behaviors such as lack of thrift and entrepreneurship associated with a middle-class ideal. At the same time, economic crises and cultural changes blurred class boundaries. The middle class emphasized bodily control and gender norms to mark its distinction. But these signifiers also were subject to instability. Middle-class women increasingly entered public spaces to shop and to work. Their place in public associated them with working-class women or, worse, prostitutes. Male honor, based on their wives secured place in the home, faced questioning. The Revolution of 1910 dealt the middle class a terrific blow. Although the revolution?s leadership, its technical cadres, bureaucratic support, and its eventual beneficiaries came from the middle class, the movement?s initial onslaught was terrifying and even devastating. Particularly in Mexico City, they initially faced food shortages, unemployment, and rising prices for basic goods and rents. The Revolution ended any middle-class ideal of autonomy from the state for self-identified members of this class turned in desperation and without shame to the government for support. They sought aid in accessing goods, affordable housing, jobs, and education. The nascent administration offered to help the middle class and the new revolutionary rhetoric validated citizens? claims for state assistance. But the post-revolutionary 223 government was a weak state in the making and boycotted by foreign powers. Administrations proved incapable or unwilling to respond. To make matters worse, the government favored the organization of blue-collar workers, whose militancy, tactics, and social conduct alienated the traditional middle class. The many artisans that identified with the worker movement split off an important sector of the beleaguered class. An exclusive identification of middle-class status with white-collar employment intensified with proletarianization as many artisans lost out to factory production. After the Revolution, the middle class flocked to jobs in the public sector. They found employment as teachers, social workers, and technicians while a large number worked in administrative offices. But the economic volatility of the 1920s prolonged financial instability. Public employees faced delayed salary payments and cyclical waves of unemployment. They survived through pawning household goods and sending daughters out to work. A modicum of security to public sector employees became possible only after 1925, when a military rebellion against the government cleansed it of a significant level of dissidence and the United States recognized and financially supported the revolutionary regime. At that moment, the government hit the middle class with another divisive blow. The Calles administration declared war on the Catholic Church in hopes of building a more secular, modern nation. Those working in public employment came under scrutiny and had to declare their loyalties publicly. Many in the middle class mobilized against the anti-religious campaign. In 1929, others expressed their dissidence in support of the anti-reelectionist campaign of Jos? Vasconcelos for the presidency, i.e. a campaign against the government?s 224 manipulation of the vote in order to install an internal candidate. Many continued their protests during the period of socialist education and working-class militancy in the 1930s. The government claimed the loyalty of their public employees through a policy of corporativization. Obligatory membership in the official political party, the PNR, and later the PRM, was required in return for job security, higher wages, access to credit, housing, and basic goods. As the corporate organization of the state advanced, these benefits, or even rights, became privileges and factors of dependency. While the largesse of the state benefited the middle class, the state?s expanded reach in other areas caused divisions between sectors of the middle class. Some became militant supporters of the post-revolutionary state?s projects and public sector employee unionization. Others rejected the state?s anti-clericalism and resisted the attack on their religious liberties. Some public employees engaged the state in demands for greater labor rights, resentful of the attention paid to industrial workers and campesinos. Other public employees protested their coopation by the state party and joined organizations such as the Confederaci?n de la Clase Media They openly challenged the C?rdenas government, which they believed represented a communist threat that attacked civil liberties and Mexican customs. Still others, fearing loss of employment, kept their heads low and complied with that state?s corporativization. Two further factors challenged the traditional, Porfirian middle class in the 1920s and 1930s. The first came from the wave of transnational consumerism that swept Mexico City in the 1920s. The chica moderna shocked society with her exposed body, short hair, and wild dancing legs, who sharply contrasted with the 225 rigidly corseted Porfirian lady clothed from head to foot. The maintenance of honor in the eyes of others proved tricky for the chicas modernas, whose behavior and dress mirrored those of working-class girls and prostitutes. Ready-to-wear clothes and cheap paper patterns made ubiquitous copies of fashionable dresses available to a broader segment of society. Popular culture introduced a new masculinity as well, concerned with bodybuilding, sports, and new forms of bodily display in clothing, lotions, haircuts, and dancing. The Porfirian pollo, or fl?neur, became the shallow f?fi, often characterized as a modern office worker. Different classes mixed at proliferating movie theaters, dance halls, and nightclubs. Romance once so private and proper for the middle class and shamefully bald-faced among the lower orders, became openly public. Sexual longing came across the airwaves through phonographs and the radio, upsetting respectable notions of propriety. Private sentiment escaped household parlors and exposed itself in public dance halls with big bands and the middle-class workplace, the office. While we do not have the data for the 1930s, greater access to the radio and the movies likely occurred which increased sources for modeling middle-class behavior while at the same time expanding the boundaries and diversity of these models. The expansion of education, the second challenging factor to the Porfirian middle class, had in large part brought women into the office. Women had begun to enter the once male domain at the end of the Porfiriato, and in the 1920s and 1930s they entered en masse. Women?s presence threatened masculine privileges and middle-class notions of proper behavior. Their respectability faced questioning: were these women members of the middle class or contaminating interlopers? Vocational 226 schools provided training in secretarial work for single young women. These same institutions offered middle-class women the opportunity to upgrade their domestic skills and learn a trade they could practice from their homes. Vocational education offered men opportunities for learning industrial and technical skills deemed necessary for national development. But many young men adjured manual and technical training in favor of preparation for white-collar work in administration and commerce. Meanwhile, male office employees had to contend with a feminized work environment and dependent relationship to the state. At the same time, greater opportunity opened for men and women alike to enter preparatory and higher education. Thus, educational expansion drove a deeper wedge between white-collar work and manual labor, increasingly associated with the organizing working class. At the same time, it increased segmentation within the middle class. In the 1930s, these divisions intensified in a struggle between the national university, interested in maintaining academic freedom and liberal careers, and the government, which sought more technicians and skilled workers for national development. The latter also desired to open more opportunities for the advancement to the working class and the children of the campesinos. In order to further these goals, the C?rdenas government created the National Polytechnic Institute (ENP) to unite, upgrade, and expand industrial and medical training and research. Affordable education for new technical careers increased employment opportunities for the middle class or those aspiring to middle-class status. Between 1890 and 1940, the middle class showed lively interest in civic life and public organizing. Sociologists and politicians repeatedly attacked Mexico?s 227 middle class for its apathy. Yet evidence shows the contrary. An in-depth look at the colonia of Santa Mar?a la Ribera reveals extensive community participation. In the Porfiriato, middle-class residents supported Catholic workers? circles established by neighborhood resident Father Troncoso. Efforts aimed at the cultural uplift of workers engaged the middle class in local issues girded by the Catholic Church?s call for social activism. Calls for material improvements, such as paved roads, sanitary markets, and better lighting, came from middle-class residents who formed committees and wrote public officials. In response to anti-clerical state policies of the 1920s and 1930s, Santa Mar?a residents organized a well-orchestrated resistance. Parents defied the ban on religious teaching by sending their children to underground schools. Families held masses in secret and harbored priests in their homes. Many participated in boycotts and in public protests that included singing hymns while being marched to prison. These actions formed part of a wide engagement with changes taking part in society. Lay- led religious associations spoke out publicly against new fads in dress, music and dance. These actions placed middle-class Catholics in the center of debates on politics, religion, education, and social life. Mexico City?s middle-class residents represented a wide spectrum of political positions. In the early 1920s, some middle-class members made alliances with the working class and poor over rent strikes. Others were reluctant to identify with the lower classes whose behavior they despised. In the 1924 elections men and women formed middle-class parties to campaign for Plutarco El?as Calles. In 1929, many supported the Anti-reelectionist campaign of Jos? Vasconcelos who they considered 228 the best hope for restoring ideals of the Revolution and defense of individual liberties. The same contradictions prevailed into the 1930s. Some abstained from working- class tactics and organization, but others, like many members of the state-controlled public employees union, eagerly took part in such strategies. The middle class split between loyalty to the PNR (later PRM) and participants in extreme right-wing, even fascist, organizations like the CCM. The CCM supported public employees who resented the heavy hand of the administration that forced them to take up party membership and join party events. Catholic public employees angered over state secularism became silenced by heavy scrutiny and fear of losing their jobs. After 1929, organizations aided unemployed members of the middle class. Middle-class men and women held rallies in movie theaters and sought means to find solutions to the desperate economic times. They attempted to circumscribe their behavior, claiming its apolitical nature, because they feared an association with militant working-class movements. The diversity of political attitudes reflected a growing, varied middle class, the boundaries of which had been blurred by an expansion of economic activity, of the state, and of education, as well as domestic and foreign immigration to the city. Foreign immigrants?Lebanese, Jewish, and Spanish?augmented the ranks of the entrepreneurial middle class. Gender changes, particularly the entry of women into the labor force, also confused class lines. Likely, the emergence of youth as a social and cultural category by virtue of being a category shared by social classes, generated changes and greater tolerance in middle-class youth that came of age in the 1930s. 229 Greater stratification of the middle class also had implications for diverse middle-class politics. Students divided between those who attended the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria versus the vocational schools, and between those attending the university and the Instituto Nacional Politecnico. Post-revolutionary nationalism and popular culture further stratified the middle class along cultural lines. The Revolution brought the indigenous, campesinos, and the industrial working class into the national pantheon. For members of the middle class who worked so hard to distinguish themselves from the lower classes, the new heroic figures threatened middle-class superiority. Some sectors of the middle class expressed their embrace of this revolutionary nationalism by painting, writing, and buying folk art. Other more conservative sectors turned to Hispanism, the valorization of Hispanic culture. Women dressed in elaborately embroidered dresses of the china poblana. Men mounted horses and donned charro costumes to represent refined, mestizo cowboys from a mythical benevolent past. Some members of Mexico?s literary circle pushed for a cosmopolitan Mexican culture tied to the transnational trends of modernism, but came under attack for their lack of nationalism and masculinity. Their detractors argued for a virile literature that glorified Mexico?s revolutionary past. Middle-class Roman Catholics asserted the centrality of Catholicism to Mexican identity in terms of national customs and traditions, including norms of middle-class respectability. The history of Mexico?s middle class from 1890-1940 demonstrates structural similarities to the middle class across Latin America. By the 1910s a middle class had arisen in most major Latin American cities. In the 1920s, the growing middle class in Peru, Brazil, and Chile came not from autonomous workers like shopkeepers and 230 professionals, but from salaried employees, many who worked in expanding state bureaucracies. These employees identified as middle class despite an income that was significantly less than that of merchants or professionals. At the same time, leaders with reform programs emerged and received support from the urban middle and working classes in Argentina, Peru, and Chile. The middle-class leadership promised government employees and professionals greater political decision making. Students and employees organized unions and affiliated with middle-class political parties like Argentina?s Radical Civic Union Party, Chile?s Radical Party and Peru?s APRA party. Union organizing was fraught with tension over the problem of class alliance. In Brazil and Chile, salaried employees worried about allying with working-class unions, some increasingly dominated by communists. Unlike elsewhere in Latin America, Mexican politics consolidated around the formation of an official state party, the PNR, and later the PRM. The integration of public employees into the official party brought them job security, social assistance, and other benefits. Their official representation in some ways helped contain middle- class discontent, particularly after 1938 when the state employees? union represented the popular sector of the party. In Mexico, by 1940, the state had contributed to a transformation of the middle class. Sectors of the middle class, namely public employees, were both larger and more dependent on the state while educational opportunities continued to assist its expansion. Despite the expansion of state-dependent public employees, the run-up to the 1940 election revealed the increasing clout of the disgruntled middle class. C?rdenas moved further to the center as he accepted the role of private schools and pulled back 231 on anti-clerical policies. Still, in 1940 large portions of the middle class supported opposition candidate, Juan Andreu Almaz?n for the presidency. The moderate right- wing presidential candidate ran under the National Unification Revolutionary Party (PRUN) and received the support of the Labor Party and National Action party (PAN). He likely would have won the election were it not for the repressive arm of the state. L?zaro C?rdenas had wisely selected a moderate candidate, Manuel ?vila Camacho, to succeed him. ?vila Camacho became a conciliating president. He distanced himself ideologically from the radical nationalism of the C?rdenas presidency. Roman Catholics and anti-Communists found relief when ?vila Camacho declared himself neither a Communist nor a socialist, and a religious believer. In 1943, ?vila Camacho created the National Confederation of Popular Organizations (Confederaci?n Nacional de Organizaciones Populares, or CNOP). The CNOP specifically addressed the needs of the middle class and provided them official representation as the popular sector of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, or PRI, the reformed PRM). ?vila Camacho used the Allied war effort in World War II to unify the country around nationalist sentiment already garnered in support of the oil expropriation in 1938. In the decades following C?rdenas, the middle class expanded greatly. While primarily due to rapid economic growth beginning in the 1950s, this expansion also benefited from state programs, particularly in the areas of secondary and higher education, subsidized housing projects, and controls that kept food prices in check. Between 1940 and 1970 Mexico underwent a period of rapid demographic growth, urbanization, and industrialization. Mass media played a critical role in broadening 232 the middle class. Both radio and cinema, accessible to ever larger numbers of citizens, put forward middle-class models for aspirants to imitate while at the same time broadening notions of middle-class behavior. The media were unifying factors and catalysts for social mobility. Mass media helped to blur class distinctions even though the Golden Age cinema projected class-based stereotypes. 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