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The Arrival of the Electric Streetcar and the Conflict over Progress in Early Twentieth-Century Montevideo*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Anton Rosenthal
Anton Rosenthal
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of History, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS.
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Abstract

The inauguration of electric streetcar service by two foreign-owned companies in Montevideo in 1906 set off an intense debate between the city's elite and its anarchist workers over the nature of progress. The streetcar became a contested symbol of modernity as the elite attempted to dictate the terms of a new urban order. Anarchists countered with an alternative vision of progress that emphasised social equality, education and liberty, and they competed for the sympathy of the middle class which grew increasingly ambivalent towards the streetcar. Trolley workers resisted a new system of discipline at the workplace and eventually led the city's first general strike, with broad public support.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , May 1995 , pp. 319 - 341
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1 For details of the 1911 general strike see Rosenthal, Anton, ‘Streetcar Workers and the Transformation of Montevideo: The General Strike of May 1911’, The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Inter-American Cultural History (forthcoming in 1995)Google Scholar.

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24 They wrangled over the duration of the city's 75-year concessions to two foreign streetcar companies, and argued whether this new form of transportation would become outmoded too soon. Diario de Sesiones de la H. Cámara de Representantes, Tomo 163, Año 1900 (Montevideo, 1901), pp. 475 and 492–4; Eduardo Acevedo Anales Históricas, p. 312.

25 La Tribuna Popular, 2 February 1905, p. 1.

26 La Tribuna Popular, 20 November 1906, p. 2.

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28 La Razón, 20 November 1906, p. 1.

29 The Montevideo Times, 21 November 1906, p. 1.

301 Uruguay Weekly News, 25 November 1906, p. 2.

31 La Razón, 20 November 1906, p.

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34 Ibid, p. 5.

35 Ibid, p. 6.

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37 La Tribuna Popular, 9 December 1906, pp. 6–7 and 10 December 1906, p. 7.

38 Montevideo Times, 11 December 1906, p. 1.

39 La Tribuna Popular, 10 December 1906, p. 7. La Mosca carried a cartoon of a full tram carrying male passengers dressed in long coats, ties, and top hats while the ladies wore large hats with feathers; third week of December, 1906, pp. 2–3. La Tribuna Popular ran a story about a young man who rode from early morning to late at night, spending almost four pesos in the process, 9 December 1906, pp. 6–7. La Democracia reported that a family of four rode for four and a half hours, spending their week's savings of three pesos, 11 December 1906, p. 1. In contrast, poor workers paid 4 pesos per month to rent a room in a conventillo. Barrán and Nahum, El Uruguay del Novecientos, p. 181.

40 La Tribuna Popular, 3 June 1907, p. 2.

41 Postcard no. 163 published by A. Carluccio, no date.

42 La Tribuna Popular, 9 December 1906, p. 6.

43 La Democracia, 18 December 1906, p. 4 noted that a falling cable broken by a storm killed a horse drawing a tram.

44 La Tribuna Popular, 17 December 1906, p. 7.

45 Ibid, 16 December 1906, p. 4.

46 La Tribuna Popular, 6 March 1909, p. 6.

47 El Siglo, 2 March 1909, p. 1; La Tribuna Popular, 11 March 1909, p. 6.

48 La Tribuna Popular, 23 June 1907, p. 1.

49 La Razón, 18 January 1907, p. 2 and 6 February 1907, p. 1; La Democracia, 24 January 1907, p. 1; La Tribuna Popular, 5 March 1909, p. 8.

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54 I have borrowed the term from Schivelbusch, Wolfgang, The Railway Journey (New York, 1977)Google Scholar, chapter two, but have altered its definition to include the workers.

55 La Tribuna Popular, 20 November 1906, p. 2 and 10 December 1906, p. 7.

56 Uruguay Weekly News, 25 November 1906, p. 2.

57 A manifesto written by the streetcar mechanics during the strike of 1911 claims that their superior in the Goes Station ‘orders the workers militarily, as if he was commanding genuine soldiers.’ La Razón, 15 05 1911, p. 8Google Scholar.

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60 La Transatlántica Compañía de Tranvías Eléctricos, Reglamento (Montevideo, no date), pp. 3–4; La Razón, 6 February 1907, p. 1.

61 Francisco Corney, one of the spokesmen of the trolley workers and a leading anarchist organiser, claimed during the 1911 strike that fines reduced the wages of streetcarmen by as much as 40 per cent. La Democracia, 17 May 1911, pp. 1–2.

62 Rodríguez Díaz, Los Sectores Populares en el Uruguay del Novecientos, p. 53; La Razón, 12 May 1911, p. 2; El Día, 12 May 1911.

63 El Siglo, 9 March 1909, p. 3.

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65 Rama, , Obreros y anarquistas (Montevideo, 1969), pp. 28Google Scholar and 32; D'Alesandro, Fernando López, Historia de la izquierda Uruguaya: 1838–1910, Anarquistas y Socialistas vol. I (Montevideo, 1988)Google Scholar.

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67 Felde, Alberto Zum, Proceso Intelectual del Uruguay: La Generación del Novecientos vol.II, fourth edition (Montevideo, 1985), pp. 10, 16–17Google Scholar, 35–9.

68 Rama, Obreros y anarchistas, p. 33.

69 Zum Felde, pp. 27–31; D'Alesandro, Fernando López, Historia de la izqueirda uruguaya, 1911–1918, La izquierda durante el Batllismo, vol. II, part one (Montevideo, 1990), pp. 42–4Google Scholar, 54.

70 La Democracia, 5 January 1907, p. 4.

71 La Federación, vol. 1, no. 1, 15 June 1911, p. 1.

72 Ibid. p. 4.

73 La Democracia, 9 May 1911, p. 4.

74 El Nivel, vol. 11, no. I5, 1 May 1909, p. 1.

75 La Razón, 4 May 1911, p. 2.

76 Quoted in La Democracia, 6 February 1906, p. 3.

77 La Emancipación, vol. I, no. 1, 1 January 1907, p. 1.

78 La Tribuna Popular, 23 June 1907, p. 4.

79 El Combate, vol. I, no. 1, 1 June 1910, ‘A los empleados de tranvías’.

80 El Combate, vol. I, no. 1, 1 June 1910.

81 Great Britain, Public Record Office, FO 371 1276 23908, 1911.

82 La Razón, 13 May 1911, p. 2.

83 El Tranvía began as a 4-page weekly in June, then became an 8-page bimonthly publication in August, lasting until the end of the year.

84 La Razón, 22 May 1911, p. 4.

85 El Tranvía, vol. I, no. 1, 10 June 1911, p. 1; vol. 1, no. 14, 15 November 1911, p. 4.

86 El Tranvía, vol. I, no. 10, 15 September 1911, p. 2.

87 El Tranvía, vol. I, no. 2, 17 June 1911, p. 2–3.

88 El Tranvía, vol. I, no. 8, 15 August 1911, p. 2; vol. 1, no. 10, 15 September 1911, p. 1; vol. 1, no. 14, 15 November 1911, pp. 2 and 4; vol. I, no. 15, 30 November 1911, p. 1.

89 La Tribuna Popular, 2 February 1906, p. 2.

90 La Prensa (Buenos Aires), 23 May 1911, p. 10.

91 López D'Alesandro, Historia de la izquierda uruguaya, 1911–1918, vol. II part one.