Society and Culture in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century PDF

Printed by: quinn.smid!@avc:.edu. Printing is for pcil80D8l, privare uso only. No part of1his book may bci npn,dua,d or tnmsmitb:d without pabliahcr'a prior permisaion. VIOl.a1ms will be proeec:uted. CHAPTER...

Printed by: quinn.smid!@avc:.edu. Printing is for pcil80D8l, privare uso only. No part of1his book may bci npn,dua,d or tnmsmitb:d without pabliahcr'a prior permisaion. VIOl.a1ms will be proeec:uted. CHAPTER 22 SOCIETY AND CULTURE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NI N ETE ENTH CENTURY RURAL LI FE Mexico remained overwhelmingly rural in the l8505;' 1860s, and 1870s, and life for the av- erage clti,~n changed litlle. Th ose,, ho resided in the Indian 1>ud>lo or the mestiw v_yJage lived much like their parents or their grandparents. In terms of earning power, s~rd of living, diet. lire expectancy, aml educatioq,.the life of rural Mexicans during the t,roPire and Lhe restored republic doscly minored the pasL ln many cases, however, communities did engage with national chani.es, often th rough a popular politics oriented tqw{rd molding the new tC) fit the old. 11w gap separating brown and wh ite Mexico, poor and rich Merlco, was not bridged in the middle of the century. IL might even have grown more prootlinced. Writer F,ancisco Pimentel described thepichotomy of Moican worlds In 1865 - The whhe ,s the proprid the anxieties of passengers of the stagecoach from Veracruz 10 Mexico City: 1 Quoll!d 11\ Luis Gonz:llez y ConzMez. rt al., H""""' modmtJ de Aib:fa,, vol. 3: IA ,,p,ll,l,,:a r«o urdlla, IA..,,,,, scdai ed. Daolcl Cosio vm,ga, (Mmco Chy, Mn. Violatvn will be prosec:utcd.  310 LlltkAU ~D CONS£RVATl\'E.S -"E.AltCII fOlt SO.ME'rHl:-.:C 81!.TT"t& It ocrur.s very frequenlly tha t the diligence is au:adted and plunctered by robbers, and many horrible adveniw-es of that kiJld are recorded, furnishing the passengers not n,ry reassuring maira for con\-'r.rsation, and keeping ihem in n continu.)I ~dtema,t.... 111c coachmnn does not even attempt to escape or resist; it is his policy to remain neutral, fo r if he acted otherwise it would not only be in vai n, but cost hun hi> life- a bullet from behind sorne bush would end his career on the next iourney.... 1 Overnight lodging in the larger towns, while generally not eleg.mt, had improved since the eady post-independence years. But accommoda tions were still lacking 1n rural nre.1s. William Marshall Anderson, a U.S. citizen who visited Mexico during the empire. found in one southern village no shelter nor place to rest bu t a miserahle grass covered shanty, no bigger or beHer than my sheep pen. As he moved nonh the ardutecrure changed but not the amenities. unplastered stone wal ls and a din 0oc,r ronstitu\e the comfort and elegance or our accommodation. By the 1850s and 1860s rural Mexicans wete cenainl lqng acrustomed to violent dep- redaLions including 1hdi and rape. French troops reportedly comported themselves e--en worse than their American predecessors of 18-16-48. Already active in popular politics that sought to strengthen their communities, indigenou and mixed-race campesinos begai1 10 express proto-nationallst s.,ntiment~ 1,, Oaxaca and other area-1, some communities dcvel- ,r oped ne-v collective identities that mixed elements of popular liberalism or conseivatism, folk Catholicism, traditional customs a communa l rights, and Lhe acceptance or new ideas about propeny and conunerti:11 agriculture. The social consequences of wa did not end with the expulsion of the French. When President Ju,trc-.t cut back on l~ size or the Mexican army, ttms of 1bousands of former soldiers faced an uncerutln future. Not a few of them formed bands and to0k out their frus. tralions on rural ,ill ages or 1acienda complexes The newspapcli"of the period were filled., with stories of brigan.dne and plunder that the ne-.vly formee new thoroughfare that conneaed Ch.tpultepec Castle to the hean of tile ci!):. The project initiated under Maximilian, who had f\,lmed it lhe C.llzada de la Emperntri~ honor of Carlota, did n0t reach completion until the period of the restored republk,.Btmito Juarez changed the name. most appropriate.ly, to tl c Paseo de lo Rd'orm~. still today a n impressi,-e bou levard Growth and change in Mexico City also accelerated social problems. Prostitution had long been accepted as a necessary evi l in Mexico, but when the women of the sueeL began openly soliciling clients at 1he entrance 10 1he main cathedral and the hundreds of smaller churches, a public uproar followed. Those who called for moral reform pointed 10 the but- geoning rate of venereal disease and the perversion of the young and innocent /\s the nine- teenth century progressed, public discourse shifted to emphasize the moral and physicll health of tl1e nation. Its advocates increasingly connec1ed childbirth and reproduction with Printed by: quinn.smi1h@avc:.ec1n. Printing is for pi,ncmal, privata uae only. No part of1his book may ba n,pmduced OJ' trammitted wilhont pabliahet11 prior permilllion. Vwla1on will be p!'OleCUted.  31 2 LlltkAU ~D CONS£RVATl\'E.S -"E.AltCII fOlt SO.ME'rHl:-.:C 81!.TT"t& The 1utbUlt'lltt o( tht rtcnd, lntt.r\ e01lon anit 1ht- ttt,Juulton m:tdf h 11W!Vhllihk 1hm ;.oldtitro,; would bi! (t)Wl(f congreg;ulng iu Mexiro City. the nation. The mother'el fore programs and schools. These activities provided an oud t for religlous social sensibilities a111Qng 1hose, especially women, who defied amicleri cal reforms. '11,ese groups represent d n emerging social Catholicism that would expand services to the needy. THE THREE CLASSES The lot of the urban working class at midcentury was only slightly beuer than that of the un- employed. fob security was nonexistent. lhe worker being comple1£ly subject to lhe whims of the employer. While the industrial revolution had scarcely touched Mexico, 1he capital did have its share of factories producing textiles, soap, dgaretl£S, Oour, and alcoholic beverages. The thousands working in these small industries enjoyed but few pro1ective laws. Legislation Printed by: quinn.smi1h@avc:.ec1n. Printing is for pi,ncmal, privata uae only. No part of1his book may ba n,pmduced or trammitted wilhont pabliahet11 prior permilllion. Vwla1on will be proJec:Uted.  Socinr ml CJJlwr, in tltt M.W/; a{ rh, Nin,r,...,J, C.-nnny 313 regulatlng chlld labor, safety J>recauLions, and other working condiLions was scam; and of. ficials seldom enforced Lhose laws on Lhe books. Slightly bener off were people who worked for 1hemse.lves, 1he 1cns ofthou.unds of street vendors each with a distinctive ,.111, hawking tonillas, S\~ee1bread, fruit. flowers, water, ice, candy, ponery, straw baskets, tamales, pulque, roas1ed com, milk. ice cre.im, rosaries, crucifixes, pictures of the Virgin of Guadalupe. and an endless variety of 01her goods. But Lheir diet was grossly deficient and lheir life c.,cpecta.ncy shon; most were illiterate and lmd in primitive housing on the outskiru; of Mexico City. For the i II iLenue cily dweller o r the recent lmmigram from lhe counrryside, domestic service provided an oppommhy 10 work. As a generation earlie~ the maids, eyrdeners, door- keepers, valets, stable masters, chambermaids, and nannies did rclaavely well. TI1ey received up 10 nfteen pesos a monLh without food. or four pesos witb room 3nd board. llut I.hey were at least assured a dean room in which to live and, despite long hoots, tolerable working conditions in a relatively safe residential distric1 of the capital. TI1e still liny middle dass-. lo good posillrisl Cashion. lhe cuoiruJwn he 1.n-- 1todt..1ccd ou the school 11oubo,d.Jruued the.)flS to th~ sciences.. Printed by: quinn.smi1h@avc:.ec1n. Printing is for pi,ncmal, privata uae only. No part of1his book may ba n,pmduced or trammitted wilhont pabliahet11 prior permilllion. Vwla1on will be proJec:Uted.  Socinr ml CJJlwr, in tltt M.W/; a{ rh, Nin,r,...,J, C.-nnny 31 7 he belie,oed, would destroy ignorance and greed. A more sclen1JJic visual cu Iwre can also be seen in the maps and allases of /\monio Carda Cubas, who combined older cano- gr.iphic methods with new technologies 10 illustmu, precise gcogl'aphical coo rdinates. I lis Cam, general de l11 Republic/I M e:dcana, drawn in 1857, was the first published map of the Mexica11 nation-state. The innovatio ns in visual cu lture also reflected the emergence of the positivist creed ln Mexico, expounded by Gabino Barreda, the director of the National Preparatory School. Nowhere is the midcentury culture of a new Mexico beuer ilhlSlrated than in the field of philosophy, and seldom can the beginning of a philosopb.ical movement be so accu- rately pinpointed as Mexican positivism. On September 16, 11167, in an Independence Day celebr.uion in Cuanajuato, Gabino Barreda delivered an eloqu~nt speech subsequently known as the "Civic Oration. As a student of Auguste Comte, s,rreda had read and ob-- served widely. I le interpreted Me:xlc.111 hisiory as a struggle b~t een a negative spirit (rep- resented most recently by the alliance of the conservath-e and the French) and a positivist spicit (embodied by u1e liberal republ ican forces). The comtfauve phase of the struggle had end.:d with the execution of Maxiinillan, and the co~cry was now prepared 10 embarl. upon 1he construaive phase. Barreda was optimist _Js;,Mexico's ma1erial regeneration could be achieved 1hrough 1he most prudcm application of scientific knowledge and the scirntlfic method. He ended bis s ~ by co10 ing a new slogan for the new Mexico: "Llbeny, Order, and Progress.' Within a shon time, however, Mexican liberals would sense that li~y was not nn eqlL'tl parmer in the p0Mtlvis1 trinity. 11 would be sncrificcd, almost meticu lotAly, 10 order and progress. The liberal parry would spli1 asunder owr the positivist issue, and the moderates, who place