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Political Ruptures and Organized Labor: Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, 1916–1922

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Jeremy Adelman
Affiliation:
Princeton University

Extract

How do organized workers take advantage of political transitions to gain ground for their movements, and conversely, in what ways do these transitions shape workers' tactics and agendas? This essay compares popular responses to political opportunities in three countries in the throes of deep crises. Exploring the routes to divergent outcomes from a common juncture during and after the First World War draws attention to the possibilities of and constraints on working-class imprints on constitutional development.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 1998

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References

NOTES

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29. Henry Robertson to State Department, September 24, 1917, 5045/25, Record Group 835, US National Archives, Washington, DC; Departamento Nacional del Trabajo, Anuario Estadístico (1917).

30. La Organización Obrera, November 30, 1917.

31. This was also a function of urban dispersal and suburbanization of working-class communities. See Leandro Gutiérrez and Juan Suriano, “Workers' Housing and Living Conditions in Buenos Aires, 1880–1930,” and Romero, Luis Alberto and Gutiérrez, Leandro, “Barrio Societies, Libraries and Culture in the Popular Sectors of Buenos Aires in the Inter-War Period,”, both in Essays in Argentine Labour History, 1870–1930, ed. Adelman, Jeremy (London, 1992), 3551 and 217–34;Google ScholarArmus, Diego and Hardoy, Jorge Enrique, “Conventillos, ranchos y casa propia en el mundo urbano del novecientos,” in Mundo urbano y cultural popular: estudios de historia social argentina, ed. Armus, Diego (Buenos Aires, 1990), 153–94.Google Scholar

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48. Rago, Margareth, Do Cabaré ão lar. Autopia da cidade disciplinar. Brazil, 1890–1930 (Rio de Janeiro, 1985), 4755;Google Scholar Rolnik, “São Paulo, inicio de industrialização,” 91.

49. Wolfe, “Anarchist Ideology, Worker Practice,” 822.

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51. Of course, this did not mean that workers gave up. Tenants' leagues reappeared in 1920 throughout the suburbs and hired lawyers to demand enforcement of earliner concessions. Again, however, there is no evidence of institutional endurance. See Alterman Blay,Eu não thenho onde morar, 148.

52. O Jornal do Brasil, May 1, 1917; cited in Banderia, Moniz, Melo, Clovis, and Andrade, A.T., O Ano Vermelho: A Revolução Russa e Seus Reflexos no Brasil (São Paulo, 1980), 52.Google Scholar

53. Alterman Blay, eu não tenho onde morar, 100.

54. Ibid., 149.

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56. Rago, Do Cabaré ão lar, 35–47; Alterman Blay, Eu ño tenho onde morar, 143–45; Keremitsis, “ The Early Industrial Worker in Rio de Janeiro”, chap. 3.

57. Cited in Margareth Rago, “Anarquismo e disciplina industrial no Brasil,” paper presented at the Jornadas sobre los trabajadors en la historia del siglo XX, Fundacióo Simón Rodríguez, Buenos Aires (July 17–19, 1991): 9. For a more genreal discussion, see Marissa Saenz Leme, A ideologia dos industriais brasileiros 1919–1945.

58. Maram, Sheldon L., “Urban Labor and Social Change in the 1920s,” Luso-Brazilian Review 16 (1979):215–23;Google Scholar For an important exploration of how these paternalist practices evoved over the ensuing decades, see Weinstein, Barbara, For Social Peace in Brazil: Industeialists and the Remaking of the Working Class in São Paulo, 1920–1964 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1996).Google Scholar

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60. Cited in Rago, Do Cabaré ão lar, 186.

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