A city dead for progress: forging the official story in 1940s León, Mexico
Newcomer, Daniel
Newcomer, Daniel
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2000
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Abstract
The idea of modernization played an important role in a reconciliation that occurred during the 1940s between advocates of the revolutionary state and their traditional conservative, Catholic opponents. The city of Le¿n, Guanajuato provided an integral background for the conflict between these elite elements. An institutional and cultural rivalry existed during the decade that pitted revolutionary organizations such as labor unions and government schools against their most dedicated opposition within the city, the pro-Catholic, anti-state Sinarquists. The latter group organized to oppose each secularization initiative proposed by the revolutionary government and its supporters within the city. Since the 1920s, city council members had carried out an extensive program of construction intended to strip the city of its local orientation, religious iconography, and its status as the symbolic capital of Catholic Mexico. Proponents of revolutionary modernization expressed the transforming power of the state by advocating projects that heralded the ideal of modernity to the government's conservative opposition. By promoting the aesthetic of modernization, which expressed a secular, objective, civic look and orientation, state advocates convinced their rivals of the legitimacy of the revolution, the necessity of industrialization, and the authenticity of democratic government, all of which rationalized the official party's domination of politics on a national scale. Modernity in Le¿n during the 1940s resembled more the planned result of state initiative than a linear, objective historical process. The acceptance of this ideal among conservatives allowed an ideological, economic, political, and cultural reconciliation between themselves and their revolutionary antagonists that contributed to the longevity of the current state. An important result of this reconciliation emerged in a nearly unanimous, if fictional, portrayal of Le¿n's popular classes as the primary obstacle to achieving the ideal of modernity. The official story that explained social reality by attempting to rationalize an extremely stratified social hierarchy nevertheless failed to create resolute ideological complicity, or hegemony, among Le¿n's larger population.
Contents
Subject
Subject(s)
León (Guanajuato, Mexico)--Politics and government--20th century
León (Guanajuato, Mexico)--History--20th century
Mexico--Social conditions--20th century
Mexico--History--20th century
León (Guanajuato, Mexico)--History--20th century
Mexico--Social conditions--20th century
Mexico--History--20th century
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Dissertation
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vii, 332 leaves : maps
Department
History