Ladrones de Luz: Policing Electricity in Mexico City, 1901–1918

2021 ◽  
Vol 101 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-72
Author(s):  
Diana J. Montaño
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Technological Change ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Federal District ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Property Space ◽  
Improper Use ◽  
Distrito Federal

AbstractThis essay explores Mexico City's electrification in the early twentieth century through the lens of power theft. The arrest and resulting trial of dozens of capitalinos (Mexico City residents) suspected of power theft allow us to document the nuances of policing and prosecuting a modern crime and thus to explore how notions of policing, private property, space, honor, and even decency influenced how people secured and used electricity. Using 63 cases tried before the Tribunal Superior de Justicia del Distrito Federal (Federal District Higher Court) and newspaper and legal debate on power theft, this article examines how capitalinos could flip seamlessly between the elitist, scripted, proper use of electricity and the ad-libbed, improper use that fit their needs in specific circumstances. By grounding electrification in everyday life, this article argues that capitalinos emerge as agents of technological change, people who understood the importance of electricity to transform their lives and spaces.

The “Sticky Sediment” of Daily Life: Radical Domesticity, Revolutionary Christianity, and the Problem of Wealth in Britain from the 1880s to the 1930s

2012 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seth Koven
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War I ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Justice ◽  
Ethical Imperative ◽  
Early Twentieth Century

This essay examines an early twentieth-century Christian revolutionary habitus—a “technique of Christian living”—based on the conviction that everyday life was an essential site for reconciling the claims of individual and community, the material and the spiritual. The pacifist-feminist members of London’s first “people’s house,” Kingsley Hall, linked their vision of Jesus’s inclusive and unbounded love for humanity to their belief in the ethical imperative that all people take full moral responsibility for cleaning up their own dirt as part of their utopian program to bring social, economic, and political justice to the outcast in London, Britain, and its empire. In imagining what a reconstructed post-World War I Britain might become, Kingsley Hall’s cross-class band of workers used mundane practices to unmake and remake the late-Victorian and Edwardian philanthropic legacy they inherited.

scholarly journals Proposal for improved mixes to produce concrete masonry units with commonly used aggregates available in the Valley of Mexico

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-56
Author(s):  
A. Tena ◽  
A. Liga ◽  
A. Pérez ◽  
F. González
Keyword(s):  
Mexico City ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Federal District ◽  
Masonry Structures ◽  
Construction Site ◽  
Test Results ◽  
Concrete Masonry ◽  
Distrito Federal ◽  
Design Value ◽  
Masonry Units

Proposal for improved mixes to produce concrete masonry units with commonly used aggregates available in the Valley of MexicoABSTRACTIn this paper, a proposal is done to update the masonry index compressive strength design value f*m for solid concrete masonry units for the masonry guidelines of Mexico´s Federal District Code (NTCM-2004). Solid units were made by taking into account the characteristics of the most commonly used raw materials available in the Valley of Mexico to fabricate such units in the Metropolitan Area of Mexico City. Different tests were conducted for both raw materials and the obtained concrete units. Based upon test results, it is illustrated why it is much better to design masonry structures based upon the experimental data of the units to be used at the construction site rather than using index values proposed in building codes.Keywords: masonry; concrete masonry units; compressive strength.Propuesta de mejora de mezclas para producir piezas de mampostería de concreto empleando materiales comúnmente disponibles en el Valle de MéxicoRESUMENSe presenta un estudio donde se hace una propuesta para actualizar los valores índices de la resistencia a la compresión de mamposterías (f*m) elaboradas con piezas de concreto especificados en las normas de mampostería vigentes en el Distrito Federal. Se realizó un estudio de mercado, donde se tomaron en cuenta las características de los materiales comúnmente utilizados en la actualidad en el Valle de México para la fabricación de piezas de concreto sólidas, incluyendo los resultados de distintas pruebas de laboratorio realizadas a la materia prima. Con base en estos resultados, se ilustran las ventajas de diseñar a la mampostería con base experimental en lugar de utilizar los valores indicativos que se ofrecen en las normas de mampostería.Palabras clave: mampostería; piezas de concreto; resistencia a la compresión. Proposta de melhoria de traços para produzir blocos de alvenaria de concreto utilizando materiais comumente disponíveis no Vale do México RESUMOApresenta-se um estudo onde se propõe uma atualização dos valores do índice de resistência à compressão da alvenaria (f*m) elaborados com blocos de concreto especificados nas normas de alvenaria em vigor no Distrito Federal. Foi realizado um estudo de mercado, que levou em conta as características dos materiais comumente utilizados atualmente no Vale do México para a fabricação de blocos de concreto sólidos, incluindo os resultados de vários testes de laboratório nas matérias-primas disponíveis. Com base nestes resultados, são apresentadas as vantagens de projetar a alvenaria com base experimental em lugar de usar os valores indicativos oferecidos nas normas de alvenaria.Palavras chave: alvenaria; blocos de concreto; resistência à compressão.

scholarly journals Experiencia urbana e imágenes colectivas de la Ciudad de México / Urban Experience and Collective Images in Mexico City

2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 663
Author(s):  
Martha De Alba
Keyword(s):  
Mexico City ◽  
Functional Space ◽  
Cognitive Maps ◽  
Federal District ◽  
The Other ◽  
Urban Experience ◽  
Distrito Federal ◽  
Urban Imagination ◽  
The One ◽  
The City

En el presente artículo se estudia el imaginario urbano de la Ciudad de México valiéndose de la comparación de la perspectiva de una muestra de residentes del Distrito Federal con otra muestra de funcionarios encargados de la gestión de la metrópoli. Se parte del supuesto de que las imágenes que esta gran ciudad suscita corresponden a dos registros distintos: por un lado la experiencia urbana captada a través del discurso sobre la ciudad y por el otro las imágenes cartográficas que se materializan en mapas cognitivos del espacio. Se presentan aquí los resultados de estas dos perspectivas complementarias de análisis de las representaciones de la ciudad y se propone una metodología para su estudio. Asimismo se analiza si la vivencia y la representación de la ciudad corresponden a las propuestas teóricas que plantean que la metrópoli contemporánea ya no es más un lugar de convivencia, sociabilidad e identidad, sino que se ha convertido en un espacio únicamente funcional. AbstractThis article studies the urban imagination in Mexico City, using the comparison of the perspective of a sample of residents from the Federal District with another sample of functionaries in charge of managing the metropolis. It begins with the assumption that the images this great city evokes correspond to two different registers: on the one hand, the urban experience recorded through the discourse on the city and on the other, the cartographic images materialized in cognitive maps of space. This article presents the results of these two complementary methods of analyzing the representations of the city and proposes a methodology for studying them. It also analyzes whether the experience and the representation of the city correspond to the theoretical proposals suggesting that the contemporary metropolis is no longer a place of coexistence, sociability and identity but has become a purely functional space.

scholarly journals Смерть как событие повседневности в творчестве Алексея Ремизова и Василия Розанова

2018 ◽  
Vol 167 ◽  
pp. 263-273
Author(s):  
Elena Borisova-Yurkovskaya
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Early Twentieth Century

Death as an everyday event in the works of Aleksey Remizov and Vasily RozanovThe paper addresses the topic of death in the works of Aleksey Remizov and Vasily Rozanov, the two iconic intellectuals of the early twentieth century in Russia. Based on the works of fiction, essays, articles and correspondence of two writers, study reveals and analyzes the similarities of their philosophical and aesthetics views. It shows how the phenomenon of death is depicted in everyday life and undergoes desacralization. It also includes polemic with the philosophical milieu of the epoch D. Merezhkovsky, P. Florensky and the literary tradition on the example of N. Gogol.Śmierć jako wydarzenie codzienności w twórczości Aleksieja Remizowa i Wasilija RozanowaArtykuł przedstawia temat śmierci w pracach Aleksieja Remizowa i Wasilija Rozanowa — dwóch ikonicznych intelektualistów początku XX wieku. Na materiale utworów literatury pięknej, esejów, artykułów i korespondencji pisarzy autor ujawnia i analizuje podobieństwa ich poglądów filozoficznych i estetycznych. Pokazuje przy tym, jak fenomen śmierci jest włączany do przestrzeni codzienności i ulega desakralizacji. Uwzględnia również polemikę ze środowiskiem filozoficznym epoki Dymitr Mierieżkowski, Paweł Florenski i tradycję literacką na przykładzie Nikołaja Gogola.

scholarly journals Reconstruction as trope of cultural display. Rethinking the role of “living exhibitions”

1970 ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Cathrine Baglo
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Western World ◽  
Amusement Parks ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
International Expositions

During the nineteenth and early twentieth century, a new and particularly widespread type of exhibition practice occurred all over the Western World, namely “living exhibitions”. They were characterized by the display of indigenous and exotic-looking peoples in zoological gardens, circuses, amusement parks, various industrial expositions, and major international expositions where representatives of indigenous and foreign peoples from all over the globe performed their everyday life in reconstructed settings. Entire milieus were recreated by bringing along dwellings, animals, objects, etc. Eventually this would also become the dominant trope of display in folkloric exhibitions. Nevertheless, the living exhibitions have not been regarded as in uential to this development. Instead, the trope has most commonly been accredited to the Swedish folklorist Artur Hazelius. In this article, I stress the importance of situating his display techniques and museological ideals within a wider context, most importantly the living exhibitions. The emphasis will be on the display of Sámi. 

Rooted in Place, Constructed in Movement

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-53
Author(s):  
Sonia Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Labor Movements ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Nuevo Leon ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Early Twentieth Century

Since the turn of the twentieth century, men and women from the greater Mexican borderlands have shared labor concerns, engaged in labor solidarities, and employed activist strategies to improve their livelihoods. Based on findings from archival research in Mexico City, Washington, DC; Texas; Tamaulipas; and Nuevo León and by engaging in transnational methodological and historiographical approaches, this article takes two distinct but related cases of labor solidarities from the early twentieth century to reveal the class and gendered complexities of transnational labor solidarities. The cases of Gregorio Cortez, a Mexican farmer and immigrant from Tamaulipas living and working in Texas in 1901, and Caritina Piña, a Tamaulipas-born woman engaged in anarcho-syndicalism in the 1920s, reveal the potential of cross-class and gendered solidarities and underscore how a variety of social contexts informed and shaped labor movements. Excavating solidarities from a transnational perspective while exposing important limitations of the labor movement sheds light on the gendered, racial, and class complexities of such forms of shared struggle; but, equally important, reminds us of how much one can learn about the power of larger, global labor movements by closely examining the experiences of those residing on nations’ edges.

BURGLARY INSURANCE AND THE CULTURE OF FEAR IN BRITAIN, c. 1889–1939

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 1039-1064 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELOISE MOSS
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Marketing Strategy ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
Insurance Sector ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Culture Of Fear ◽  
State And Market ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Market Discourse

ABSTRACTThis article explores the representations of burglary and burglars created by the burglary insurance sector in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. Two lines of argument are developed: first, that the marketing strategy of the burglary insurance sector exacerbated existing fears about the nature and prevalence of burglary in a calculated bid to attract custom; and secondly, that the depictions of crime and criminal used in marketing this form of insurance were subsequently revised in the contracts issued to customers as part of the industry's commercial transactions, thereby securing against supposed ‘negligence’ by homeowners as well as malicious attempts to defraud insurers. As the self-styled commercial ‘protection’ against burglary, burglary insurance became an ordinary household investment. Its prosperity therefore enables us to identify certain ideas about crime and criminal then current. Crucially, this research highlights the intersection of media, state, and market discourse about crime in weaving a specific version of burglary into the very fabric of everyday life, uniting three domains that historians of crime have traditionally treated separately.

Reappraising State Intervention and Social Policy in Mexico: The Case of Milk in the Distrito Federal during the Twentieth Century

1999 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrique C. Ochoa
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Federal District ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Milk Supply ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Powdered Milk ◽  
Competing Demands ◽  
Distrito Federal

This essay moves beyond the sweeping generalizations about government intervention in the economy to examine the complex factors that have led to such policies. By examining the case of milk in the Federal District during a period of historic transformation, the essay demonstrates how urban pressures, competing demands, and the relatively easy solution of importing powdered milk during periods of crisis led government officials to use the new technology of milk recombination as a solution to the myriad problems plaguing Mexico City's milk supply. / Este ensayo va más allá de las extensas generalizaciones sobre la intervención del gobierno en la economía, para examinar los complejos factores que han llevado a tales políticas. A través de un análisis del caso de la leche en el Distrito Federal durante un periodo de transformación histórica, el ensayo demuestra la manera en que las presiones urbanas, las demandas competitivas y la relativamente fácil solución de importar leche en polvo durante periodos de crísis, llevó a oficiales del gobierno a utilizar la nueva tecnología de la recombinación de leche como una solución a la miríada de problemas que plaga a la suministración de leche en la ciudad de México.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document