Memorializing modern Mexico: the state funerals of the Porfirian era, 1876-1911Show full item record
Title | Memorializing modern Mexico: the state funerals of the Porfirian era, 1876-1911 |
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Author | Esposito, Matthew D. |
Date | 1997 |
Genre | Dissertation |
Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
Abstract | In November, 1876 General Porfirio Diaz overthrew the government of Mexican President Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada. Diaz's military fame, liberal credentials, national popularity, and personal integrity were impeccable but since he assumed power by force of arms after a decade of constitutional successions he lacked political legitimacy. Diaz carried out various expedient policies to legitimate his accession, consolidate authority, and ensure the long-term survival of his regime. Diaz accomplished these goals by performing typical republican ceremonies that associated his regime with great leaders and liberal governments of the past. Among the most significant and frequent political rituals of the Porfirian Era was the state funeral. Over the course of the thirty-five year dictatorship (1876-1911), the government organized, financed, and performed 102 state funerals, an average of three per year. On fourteen occasions the state even exhumed and reburied the remains of national heroes. Enormous crowds of up to 150,000 citizens, one-third of Mexico City' s population, attended these great public spectacles. The government used state funerals to advance its pedagogical, political, and economic objectives. State funerals presented fallen leaders as archtypical patriots worth emulating and public buildings, streets, and cemeteries became classrooms for informal education. In each funeral, the public laying-in-state, civic procession, and burial ceremony served as visual media that inculcated illiterate citizens with civic and moral values. Funeral orations and press obituaries taught lessons of the past, reinventing the historical memory of citizens who could read. As expensive theatrical performances, state funerals showcased the majestic colonial palaces of the nation's capital and projected an image of prosperity to foreign observers, many of whom were American and European investors. During the three-day commemorative events, the government deployed symbols of authority such as the professional army, rural constabulary, and urban police force as well as technological innovations such as electric streetcars to maintain the illusion of order and progress. Instead of solemn and tranquil occasions, the funerals often gave rise to deviant behavior and popular disorder. They nevertheless succeeded in memorializing great heroes and historical events on the one hand, and exalting Porfirio Diaz and modern Mexico on the other. |
Link | https://repository.tcu.edu/handle/116099117/33629 |
Department | History |
Advisor | Beezley, William H. |
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- Doctoral Dissertations [1487]
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