¹ This phrasing comes from Berman, Marshall's All that is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), 15Google Scholar. My intellectual debt to Berman should be obvious. The terms modern, modernity, and modernization are of course problematic, especially in discussions of societies that have yet to achieve dynamic, industrialized economies capable of reproducing their own capital stock and of generating new technologies. Throughout this essay I have attempted to use these terms in as circumspect and specific a manner as possible. It should become clear to the reader that I do not regard modernity as a final, stable endpoint to the process of modernization which only a few fortunate societies have achieved while the rest of the world struggles to catch up. As Benjamin Schwartz insists in his discussion of culture and modernity in China, modernity is not a homogeneous, static “whole” but a loose, unstable system subject to both internal tensions and external influences. See his perceptive comments in Schwartz, Benjamin, “Culture, Modernity, and Nationalism,” Daedalus, 22:3 (Summer 1993), 207–26Google Scholar.

² These changes are of course both propelled by, and make possible, the spread of international market capitalism.

³ Jordán, Louis María, “Una visita de ultratumba,” Renacimiento, 1:2 (July 1909), 240–9Google Scholar.

⁴ Juan Moreira was the fictional protagonist in the eponymous novel by Eduardo Gutiérrez. Published in 1879, the novel was an instant success and its protagonist became a popular folk hero who reappeared in numerous works of fiction and in popular theater. For a discussion of the development of moreirismo in theater and elite responses to it, see Prieto, Adolfo, El discurso criollista en la formatión de la Argentina moderna (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1988)Google Scholar.

⁵ Jordán, “Una visita de ultratumba,” 242.

⁶ Ibid., 245–6.

⁷ The field of literary criticism has recently offered more nuanced treatments, which emphasize both the class background and the changing status of intellectuals who promoted these new stereotypes. See note 17.

⁸ Slatta, Richard, “The Gaucho in Argentina's Quest for Identity,” Canadian Review of Studies in Nationalism, 12:1 (1985), 99,103Google Scholar. Carl Solberg also explains the early twentieth-century glorification of the gaucho as part of the elite's strategy of cultural nationalism, which served to justify its continued dominance vis-à-vis the immigrant. According to Solberg, upper-class Argentines believed that by promoting the gaucho as the essence of the Argentine national character, immigrants would come to accept the hierarchical structure of Argentine society and “abandon such ‘foreign’ ideas as popular democracy, socialism and anarchosyndicalism.” Solberg, Carl, Immigration and Nationalism: Argentina and Chile, 1890–1914 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1970), 170Google Scholar.

⁹ This is especially true in the cases of Manual Galvez and Ricardo Rojas. Although from the traditional elite, they frequently criticized the national oligarchy for its excessive cosmopolitanism. The division between nativist intellectuals and the traditional oligarchy would continue, blocking efforts to organize a nationalist political party that would attract upper-class support. For a discussion, see Gerassi, Marysa Narvarro, Los nacionalistas (Buenos Aires: Editorial Jorge Alvarez s.a., 1968), 172–3Google Scholar, and Rock, David, “Intellectual Precursors of Conservative Nationalism in Argentina, 1900–1927,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 67:2 (1987), 271–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ Eric Hobsbawm, “Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe, 1870–1914,” in The Invention of Tradition, Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds. (1983; Reprint, New York: Cambridge University Press) (Canto Edition), 1992), 263–4.

¹¹ For a more complete discussion of this process, see Jorge B. Rivera, “La forja del escritor profesional (1900–1930): Los escritores y los nuevos medios masivos,” Historia de la literatura argentina, Tomo 3 (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina), 337–84.

¹² For a discussion of this process and its negative impact on Argentina's own industrial development, see Roberto Cortés Conde, “Problemas del crecimiento industrial (1870–1914),” and Cornblit, Oscár, et al., “La generatión del 80 y su proyecto: Antecedentes y consecuencias,” both in Argentina, sociedad de masas, Telia, Torcuato Di, et al., eds. (Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1965) 59–84Google Scholar, 18–58.

¹³ The phrase comes from John Hutchinson's discussion of Gellner (Hutchinson, John, “Moral Innovators and the Politics of Regeneration: The Distinctive Role of Cultural Nationalists in Nation-Building,” in Ethnicity and Nationalism, Smith, Anthony D., ed. (New York: E. J. Brill) 1992, 107Google Scholar. For himself, Gellner, see his Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), 57–61Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Gellner notes that of course the rural folk themselves rarely participate in this romanticization of traditional ways; the nationalist intellectuals “donned folk costumes and trekked over the hills, composing poems in forest clearings” (Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, 61).

¹⁵ Gálvez, Manuel, El diario de Gabriel Quiroga, (Buenos Aires: Arnoldo Moen y Hermanos, 1910), 54, 101–2Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Becher, Emilio, La Nación (Buenos Aires), January 7, 1906Google Scholar.

¹⁷ For a fuller discussion of the relationship between the changing status of intellectuals and their role in promoting Argentine cultural nationalism, see Altamirano, Carlos and Sarlo, Beatriz, “La Argentina del centenario: campo intelectual, vida literaria y temas ideológicos,” Ensayos argentinos: de Sarmiento a la vanguardia (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de America Latina, 1983), 69–105Google Scholar. For a similar discussion on the changing status of Latin American intellectuals and their self-defined role as defenders of national traditions, see Ramos, Julio, Desencuentros de la modernidad: Literatura y politico en el siglo XIX (Mexico: Fonda de Cultura Economica, 1989), especially 209–14Google Scholar.

¹⁸ This speech by Ricardo Rojas at a banquet held in his honor was reprinted in Nosotros, nos. 13–14 (August-September 1908), 124–7.

¹⁹ Rojas, Ricardo, “Cuestiones electorales,” La Nación, September 10, 1911Google Scholar.

²⁰ Torcuato Di Telia estimates that 60 to 70 percent of these two classes were comprised of immigrants. It should be noted that the native elite retained a firm grip on the rural sector, unquestionably the most lucrative sector of the economy. Telia, Torcuato S. Di, “El impacto inmigratorio sobre el sistema politico argentino,” Estudios migratorios latinoamericanos, 4:12, (August 1989), 212–3Google Scholar.

²¹ To be a liberal in nineteenth-century Argentina meant to believe in Enlightenment notions of progress and individualism. While liberals were divided on the question of democracy (most, by mid-century, believed the Argentine people were still unprepared for a truly democratic system), all agreed that Argentines should model their nation's political and economic development along the lines of that of the United States and of Europe.

²² The term, which I use with some liberty, isMorse, Richard's. See his Espejo de Próspero: unestudio de la dialéctica del Nuevo Mundo (México: Siglo Veintiuno, 1982)Google Scholar.

²³ Rock, David, Argentina 1516–1987, from Spanish Colonization to Alfonsín (Berkeley:University of California Press, 1987), 114Google Scholar.

²⁴ Donghi, Tulio Halperín, “Para que la inmigración? Ideolgía y politica inmigratoria y aceleración del proceso modernizador: el caso argentino,” Jahrbuch Fur Geschichte Von Stoat, Wirschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas, Band 13 (Köln: Bohlau Verlag, 1976), 443Google Scholar.

²⁵ Letter from Bernardino Rivadavia to J. M. Pueyrredón, cited in Tulio Halperín Donghi, “Para que la inmigración?,” 443.

²⁶ Given this emphasis on immigration as a cure for the Spanish legacy, it is little wonder that Rivadavia believed the ideal immigrant should be non-Catholic. This preference for Northern Europeans, as Tulio Halperin has noted, was so self-evident that it neither required, nor provoked, discussion (Tulio Halperín Donghi, “Para que la inmigración?,” 444). It might be argued that the anti-immigrant sentiment at the turn of the century stemmed from the fact that the immigrants were from Southern, rather than Northern, Europe. But as will be developed below, critics of the immigrants were largely indifferent to the newcomers’ national origins. Turn-of-the-century intellectuals attacked the largely Italian and Spanish immigrant population for precisely those traits—frugality, initiative and hard work—that their nineteenth-century predecessors had found so attractive in Northern European immigrants.

An interesting twist in this regard is the fact that some early turn-of-the-century intellectuals, who believed Argentina still needed to encourage European immigration in order to expand the labor supply, argued that preference should be given to Spanish and Italian immigrants because they would more easily assimilate into Argentine society. Immigration from Northern European countries, in contrast, was to be discouraged. See the special opinion poll conducted by the Boletín Mensual del Museo Social Argentina, no. 85–90 (January-June 1919).

²⁷ Sarmiento, Domingo F., Facundo, [1845] (Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada, S.A., Buenos Aires, 1981), 240Google Scholar.

²⁸ Alberdi, Juan B., cited in Gladys Onega, La inmigración en la literatura argentina (1880–1910) (Buenos Aires: Centre Editor de América Latina, 1982), 29Google Scholar.

²⁹ Sarmiento, Facundo, 29.

³⁰ Mejía, José María Ramos, Las multitudes argentinas (Buenos Aires: Editorial Biblioteca, Coleccion Conocimiento de la Argentina, 1974), 209Google Scholar.

³¹ Ibid., 214.

³² In 1916, the lectures were published under the title of El Payador; the quotations are from this work. See Lugones, Leopoldo, El Payador y Antología de Poesía y Prosa (Caracas: Biblioteca Ayachucho, 1979)Google Scholar.

³³ Leopoldo Lugones, El Payador, 126, 50, 51, passim.

³⁴ The drive to define (and defend) national literary tradition was one of the key themes of this period. See Altamirano and Sarlo, “La Argentina del centenario,” 69–105, and Altamirano, Carlos, “La fundación de la literature argentina,” in Altamirano and Sarlo, Ensayos argentinos: de Sarmiento a la vanguardia (Buenos Aires: Centra Editor de America Latina, 1983) 107–15Google Scholar. This concern with defining distinctively Argentine cultural traditions can be seen in other areas as well. During this period, we see spreading interest in Argentine art, music, folklore, and even architecture. For contemporary discussions of Argentine art, see Grognet, Emilio Ortiz, “Bellas artes,” Nosotros, 1:2 (September 1907)Google Scholar; Korn, Guillermo, “Hacia un arte americano?,” Valoraciones, no. 7 (September 1925), 67–69Google Scholar. For music, see Talamón, Gastón, “Nuestra miisica en 1918,” Nosotros, 28:105 (January 1918), 116–24Google Scholar. For folklore: Quiroga, Adán, “El folk-lore argentino,” Revista Argentina de Ciencias Politicas, vol. 15 (1917), 590–609Google Scholar. For architecture, see Martin Noel's conference on the future building of Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (reprinted in Verbum, no. 71 [1928], 70–80).

³⁵ Lugones, El Payador, 42–43, 50, passim.

³⁶ O'Connor, Arturo Reynal, preface to his book, Los poetas argentinas, in Ideas, 4:15 (July 1904), 246–8Google Scholar.

³⁷ Rubianes, Joaquín, “El retroceso moral de Buenos Aires,” Revista Argentina de Ciencias Politicas, 4:23 (August 1912), 643–52Google Scholar.

³⁸ The rejection of materialism and the need to cultivate artistic values, beauty and idealism, were of course, key tenets of the modernist movement that swept Hispanic America during this period and gained numerous followers in Argentina. Modernism, with its hostility to positivism, clearly nourished and helped provide the vocabulary for many intellectuals’ critique of materialism. For a helpful discussion of the backlash against positivism and how it helped shape the emerging nativism of the period, see Rock, “Intellectual Precursors of Conservative Nationalism in Argentina, 1900–1927,” 272–5.

³⁹ Scobie, James, Buenos Aires: Plaza to Suburb, 1870–1919 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), 232Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Adolfo Posado, La República Argentina, cited in Scobie, Buenos Aires: Plaza to Suburb,232.

⁴¹ Pascarella, Luis, “El conventillo,” [1918] cited in Testimonios culturales Argentinos, La década del 10, Pellettieri, Osvaldo, ed. (Buenos Aires: Editorial Belgrano, 1980), 43Google Scholar.

⁴² Gálvez, Manuel, El solar de la raza, [1913] (Buenos Aires: Editorial Tor, 1936), 11–12Google Scholar.

⁴³ While many students of modernity have commented on this phenomenon, the discussion below is drawn primarily from Simmel, Georg's seminal work, The Philosophy of Money, T. Bottomore and David Frisby, trans. (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978), 430Google Scholar, passim.

⁴⁴ Romero, José Luis, Latinoamérica: Las ciudades y las ideas (Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno, 1976), 265Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ Santiago Rusinol, Un viaje al Plata, V. Prite y Cia (Madrid, 1911, cited in Pellettieri, Testimonios culturales argentinos, 37.

⁴⁶ Huret, Jules, La Argentina, De Buenos Aires al Gran Chaco, Carillo, E. Gómez, trans. (Paris: Sociedad de Ediciones Louis-Marchaud, 1913), 587–88Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ See for example, Joaquín Rubianes, “El retroceso moral de Buenos Aires,” 634–52.

⁴⁸ Cires, E. de, “La criminalidad in Buenos Aires,” Revista Argentina de Ciencias Políticas, no. 22, (July 1912), 495Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Madrid, Samuel de, “El trabajo infantil en las industrias,” Boletín Mensual de Museo Social Argentino, 7:75–80 (1918), 598Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Pedro Pico, “Ganarse la vida,” cited in Solberg, Immigration and Nationalism in Argentina and Chile, 90.

⁵¹ Lucio Mansilla, Mis memorias: infancia y adolescencia, (1904; Reprint, Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1966), 120.

⁵² Rafael Obligado, Mis montañas (Buenos Aires, 1905), XVIII.

⁵³ Becher, Emilio, La Natión (April 17, 1906)Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ Ingenieros, José, El hombre mediocre (Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada, 8th ed., 1974)Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ Bell, Daniel, “Modernism and Capitalism,” in Writers and Politics: A Partisan Review Reader, Kursweil, Edith and Phillips, William, eds. (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983), 121Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ Wohl, Robert, The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), 215–6Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Lears, Jackson, No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981), 4–5Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ Luis María Jordán, “Una visita de ultratumba,” 245.

⁵⁹ Lucio Mansilla, Mis memorias: infancia-adolescencia, 120.

⁶⁰ Granmontagne, Francisco, La Maldonada, cited in Germán García, El inmigrante en la novela argentina (Buenos Aires: Libreria Hachette, 1970) 91Google Scholar.

⁶¹ James Scobie, Buenos Aires, Plaza to Suburb, 210.

⁶² Williams uses this term in his discussion of the contrast between urban and rural fiction, stating that in the former, community and identity are more problematic due to the greater complexity and scale of city life. Williams, Raymond, The City and the Country (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982) 165–81Google Scholar. The point here is to contrast not the city and the countryside but the city of Buenos Aires before and after rapid modernization. The fact that many intellectuals of the period were not natives of Buenos Aires but had come from the provinces would only reinforce this sense of social confusion.

⁶³ Bagú, Sergio, “Estratificación social y estructura national del conocimiento en la Argentina, 1880–1930,” Revista de la Universidad National de Córdoba, 3:1–2 (March-June 1963), 14Google Scholar.

⁶⁴ Scobie, Buenos Aires: Plaza to Suburb, 232–4.

⁶⁵ Ibid., 220.

⁶⁶ Letter from José María Rojas y Patrán to Juan Manuel de Rosas, February 7, 1868, cited in Tulio Halperín Donghi, “Para que la inmigracion?,” 462.

⁶⁷ Cané, Miguel, Prosa ligera, [1903] (published together with Juvenilia, Buenos Aires: La Cultura Argentina, 1916), 211Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ Bell, “Modernism and Capitalism,” 121.

⁶⁹ Cané, Prosa ligera, 211. Cané is, of course, merely echoing a broadly held sentiment. It is noteworthy that José María Rojas, quoted above, also takes care to mention the foreign origin of his servant who enjoyed the evening out in a coach.

⁷⁰ Literary critic Steven Marcus, in his insightful book on Fredrick Engels and nineteenthcentury Manchester, captures this point eloquently when he writes that “one of the chief compo nents of the distress commonly felt by many people in modern cities is their sense that the city is unintelligible and illegible. The city is experienced as estrangement because it is not perceived as a coherent system of signs, as a surrounding communicating to us in a language that we know”(Engels, Manchester and the Working Class [New York: Random House, 1974], 98Google Scholar).

⁷¹ See, for example, Lugones, El Payador, 61.

⁷² Casabal, Adolfo, “Algo sobre el carácter nacional,” Estudios, vol. 4 (1903), 434-5Google Scholar.

⁷³ “Dia de la raza,” Ideas, 1:1 (October 1918)Google Scholar, n.p. (Note: this magazine should not be confused with an earlier magazine, also called Ideas, that was edited by Ricardo Olivera and Manuel Gálvez and began publication in 1903).

⁷⁴ Dávalos, Juan Carlos, Los Gauchos (Buenos Aires: Editorial La Facultad, Juan Roldán y Cia, 1928), 18Google Scholar.

⁷⁵ See, for example, the comments of critic Julio Noé in La Natión, November 13, 1927.

⁷⁶ Carlés, Manuel, Liga patriótica, 9th congreso nacionalista, sesiones del 22, 23, 24 de Mayo (Buenos Aires: Imprenta Ventriglia, 1928)Google Scholar. n.p.