Searching for theOasis in Life: Fashion and the Question of Female Emancipation in Late Nineteenth-Century Argentina

2004 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Regina A. Root
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Writing Process ◽  
Urban Expansion ◽  
Conspiracy Theory ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Happy Ending ◽  
Late Nineteenth

One day, a young romance writer who has lost his place to urban expansion in Buenos Aires overhears this intimate conversation coming from another bedroom in an all-women's residence hall. An “invisible houseguest” in Madame Bazan'spensionadofor middle-class women of all ages, Mauricio Ridel works on finishing a happy ending for his latest serialized novel. During the writing process, however, he finds himself distracted by the sounds and rhythms of the house, his focus carried away to the conversations in the house on fashion, family life and female emancipation. Careful not to indicate his presence in any way (for he has agreed to respect the privacy of the women who live there), Ridel listens in to the conversations between female residents from the comfort of his assigned room. Believing themselves removed from male listeners, the female characters of Juana Manuela Gorriti'sOasis en la vida(1888) openly discuss their concerns and desires in the security of enclosed spaces. The dialogic sequence that begins this essay demonstrates the relief that a group of unnamed women experience when removing their uncomfortable clothing. They complain about the weight and needless complexity of their fashions and even flesh out a conspiracy theory concerning a few of those crazy designers. As the women contemplate the changes that tomorrow's fashions will inevitably bring, their soft, sweet voices appear punctuated by the incongruous thud of tossed garments.

Introduction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lila Caimari
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Urban Expansion ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Neighborhood Associations ◽  
Grassroots Politics ◽  
The World ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Many

This introductory chapter begins with the author's account of the origins of the present volume, which can be traced back to her interest in a late nineteenth-century set of concepts, images, and metaphors that grew up around the figure of the modern criminal. It then discusses the population growth in Buenos Aires, which jumped from about 1.5 to 2.5 million in the two decades between the world wars and the corresponding urban expansion. This sets the stage for a description of the book's purpose, namely to explore the many dimensions of porteño life in the early decades of the twentieth century: its vital network of neighborhood associations, its literacy campaigns, its grassroots politics, its many reformist projects, and so forth.

DELIGHTFUL COXCOMBS TO INDUSTRIOUS MEN: FASHIONABLE POLITICS IN CECIL AND PENDENNIS

2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 289-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Nicolay
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Class A ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
A Site ◽  
Trade Office

THOMAS CARLYLE’S CONTEMPTUOUS DESCRIPTION of the dandy as “a Clothes-wearing Man, a Man whose trade, office, and existence consists in the wearing of Clothes” (313) has survived as the best-known definition of dandyism, which is generally equated with the foppery of eighteenth-century beaux and late nineteenth-century aesthetes. Actually, however, George Brummell (1778–1840), the primary architect of dandyism, developed not only a style of dress, but also a mode of behavior and style of wit that opposed ostentation. Brummell insisted that he was completely self-made, and his audacious self-transformation served as an example for both parvenus and dissatisfied nobles: the bourgeois might achieve upward mobility by distinguishing himself from his peers, and the noble could bolster his faltering status while retaining illusions of exclusivity. Aristocrats like Byron, Bulwer, and Wellington might effortlessly cultivate themselves and indulge their taste for luxury, while at the same time ambitious social climbers like Brummell, Disraeli, and Dickens might employ the codes of dandyism in order to establish places for themselves in the urban world. Thus, dandyism served as a nexus for the declining aristocratic elite and the rising middle class, a site where each was transformed by the dialectic interplay of aristocratic and individualistic ideals.

Educating a City's Children: British Immigrants and Primary Education in Buenos Aires (1820-1880)

2013 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alina Silveira
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
South American ◽  
European Immigrants ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
New Nation ◽  
Labor Skills

Argentina, and Buenos Aires in particular, was a preferred South American destination for great numbers of European immigrants who crossed the Atlantic beginning in the late nineteenth century in search of new opportunities. Most Latin American governments, from the early days of their nations' independence, sought to attract European workers. These newly founded countries considered immigration an essential element for creating a society that would become economically, politically, and socially modern. They hoped to attract mainly foreigners from Northern Europe, among them the British, whom they considered to have superior labor skills and to be accustomed to the habits of order and work the new nation required.

Childbearing and Childrearing

2019 ◽  
pp. 18-43
Author(s):  
Brianna Theobald
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Older Women ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Government Employees ◽  
Pregnancy And Childbirth ◽  
Late Nineteenth

This chapter lays the groundwork for the book’s use of the Crow Reservation in Montana as an extended case study. After providing an overview of Crow history to the late nineteenth century, the chapter sketches the parameters of a Crow birthing culture that prevailed in the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century. Crow women navigated pregnancy and childbirth within female generational networks; viewed childbirth as a sex-segregated social process; and placed their trust in the midwifery services of older women. The chapter further explores government employees’ attitudes toward and interventions in Indigenous pregnancy, childbirth, and especially family life in these years, as these ostensibly private domains emerged as touchstones in the federal government’s ongoing assimilation efforts.

Ordering Empire and Democracy, 1902–1921

2020 ◽  
pp. 24-67
Author(s):  
Tobias Harper
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
British Empire ◽  
British Society ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Order ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Opening Up

This chapter examines the creation of new orders at the beginning of the twentieth century, which was the culmination of a prolonged period of “unprecedented honorific inventiveness” starting in the late nineteenth century. In Britain the new Order of the British Empire was branded the “Order of Britain’s Democracy” in recognition of the fact that it extended far deeper into non-elite classes in British society than any previous honour. Between 1917 and 1921 more than 20,000 people in Britain and throughout the British Empire were added to this new Order. This was an unprecedented number, orders of magnitude larger than honours lists in previous years. While the new Order was successful in reaching a wider, more middle-class audience than the honours system before the war, which was socially narrow, there was a substantial backlash to what was widely perceived by elites to be an excessive (and diluting) opening-up of the “fount of honour.” This backlash was connected to political controversies about the sale of honours that eventually helped bring about Lloyd George’s downfall. This chapter also contains a brief description of all the components of the British honours system at the beginning of the twentieth century.

scholarly journals ‘What a Wonderful Change Have I Undergone…So Altered in Stature, Knowledge & Ideas!’: Apprenticeship, Adolescence and Growing Up in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Ulster

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leanne Calvert
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Young People ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Until the late nineteenth century, apprenticeship was the main way in which young people were trained in crafts and trades. Given that most apprenticeship terms lasted approximately seven years, young people could expect to spend a large part of their youth in service to another. Apprenticeship therefore coincided with an important phase in the life cycle of many young men (and women) during this period. A study of apprenticeship not only tells us how young people learned the skills with which they made their future living, it also casts light on the process of ‘growing up’. However, we still know little about the everyday lives of apprentices, their relationships with their masters, and how young people themselves understood the transition from adolescence to adulthood. Drawing largely on the diary of John Tennent (1772–1813), a grocer’s apprentice who kept a record of his time spent in service, this article aims to broaden our understanding of these themes in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Ireland. It demonstrates that, for young middle-class men like Tennent, apprenticeship played a key role in the transition from boy to manhood.

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