Working-Class Newspapers before 1930
Working-Class Newspapers before 1930
- Lucas PoyLucas PoyVrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Summary
In the last third of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, Latin American societies underwent a process of social and economic transformations. Albeit with local specificities and different chronologies, a common by-product of these changes was the emergence of the labor movement as a political actor. This article examines an instrument that played an essential role in the organizational development of the working classes and remains a crucial source for reconstructing their history: the working-class newspaper. As elsewhere, these labor periodicals were ubiquitous and resilient: distributed at the doors of factories and workshops, sold on the streets, handed out at rallies and protests, they were read, silently and aloud, in cafés, taverns and bars, workshops, mines, or communal areas of tenement houses. They shared news of glorious victories and vicious repressions and put anger and hope into paper and ink.
Subjects
- Cultural History
- Labor History
