I Speak of the City: Mexico City at the Turn of the Twentieth Century 9780226792736

In this dazzling multidisciplinary tour of Mexico City, Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo focuses on the period 1880 to 1940, the

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Spanish; Castilian Pages 560 [528] Year 2015

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I Speak of the City: Mexico City at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
9780226792736

Author / Uploaded
Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo

Citation preview

i speak of the city

mauricio tenorio- trillo is professor of history at the University of Chicago, and profesor asociado at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Mexico City. He is the author, among others, of Mexico at the World's Fairs, Argucias de la historia, De cómo ignorar, and Historia y celebración. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2012 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2012. Printed in the United States of America 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12

1 2 3 4 5

isbn-13: 978-0-226-79271-2 (cloth) isbn-10: 0-226-79271-4 (cloth) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tenorio-Trillo, Mauricio, 1962– I speak of the city : Mexico City at the turn of the twentieth century / Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo. pages. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn-13: 978-0-226-79271-2 (cloth : alkaline paper) isbn-10: 0-226-79271-4 (cloth : alkaline paper) 1. Mexico City (Mexico)—History. 2. Mexico City (Mexico)—Social conditions. I. Title. f1386.3.t465 2012 972'.530816—dc23

2011052768

o This paper meets the requirements of ansi / niso z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

A Beatriz, César, Fernando, Fausto, Gerardo, Helena y Jean . . . A la Xaparreu.

hablo de la ciudad inmensa, realidad diaria hecha de dos palabras: los otros, y en cada uno de ellos hay un yo cercenado de un nosotros, un yo a la deriva, hablo de la ciudad construida por los muertos, habitada por sus tercos fantasmas, regida por su despótica memoria, I speak of the immense city, that daily reality composed of two words: the others and in every one of them there is an I clipped from a we, an I adrift I speak of the city built by the dead, inhabited by the stern ghosts, ruled by their despotic memory — Octavio Paz, “Hablo de la ciudad” [fragment] Vuelta, no. 118 (September 1986), 8. Poem dedicated to, and translated by, Eliot Weinberger

contents

Acknowledgments xi Note on Translations xiii Introduction xv

part i. right around 1910 . . . 1 2 3

On 1910 and the City of the Centennial 3 On 1910 Contrasts: Washington and Mexico City 43 Interiors 63

part ii. 1919 4

In and Around 1919 Mexico City 93

part iii. the brown atlantis 5 6

The Brown Atlantis 147 Transparency 168

part iv. odalisque- mania 7 8

Japan 211 India 248

part v. science and city 9 10

Science and the City, Stories from the Sidewalk 283 On Lice, Rats, and Mexicans 311

part vi. language 11 12

Whispers 355 The Street Muse 383

Final Word 415 Notes 419 Archives Cited 487 Index 489

acknowledgments

Friends and institutions made these essays possible. My lifelong friends Gerardo Laveaga, César Fonseca, Alfredo Hidalgo, Salvador Cañez, and Eduardo Padilla walked through the city with me at an age when oblivion was an impossible mental exercise. Moreover, I could have not imagined this or any other book or essay without the people I have lost: Juan Tenorio Carmona, Leonor González, Arcelia Trillo Aviña, Melchor Solis, Fredrick Bowser, Luis Cadena, Carlos Ávila, and Charles A. Hale. My actual or virtual teachers, Raúl Valadés, Ernesto Azuela, José Luis Piñeyro, the late Cathy Nelson, the late Richard Morse, Jean Meyer, Beatriz Rojas, Fernando Escalante, William Tobin, David Brading, James Sidbury, Judith Co