A Sentimental Education for the Working Man : The Mexico City Penny Press, 1900-1910

In A Sentimental Education for the Working Man Robert Buffington reconstructs the complex, shifting, and contradictory ideas about working-class masculinity in early twentieth-century Mexico City. He argues that from 1900 to 1910, the capital's satirical penny press provided working-class readers with alternative masculine scripts that were more realistic about their lives, more responsive to their concerns, and more representative of their culture than anything proposed by elite social reformers and Porfirian officials. The penny press shared elite concerns about the destructive vices of working-class men, and urged them to be devoted husbands, responsible citizens, and diligent workers; but it also used biting satire to recast negative portrayals of working-class masculinity and to overturn established social hierarchies. In this challenge to the "macho" stereotype of working-class Mexican men, Buffington shows how the penny press contributed to the formation of working-class consciousness, facilitated the imagining of a Mexican national community, and validated working-class men as modern citizens. Book jacket In A Sentimental Education for the Working Man Robert Buffington reconstructs the complex, shifting, and contradictory ideas about working-class masculinity in early twentieth-century Mexico City. He argues that from 1900 to 1910, the capital{u0092}s satirical penny press provided working-class readers with alternative masculine scripts that were more realistic about their lives, more responsive to their concerns, and more representative of their culture than anything proposed by elite social reformers and Porfirian officials. The penny press shared elite concerns about the destructive vices of working-class men, and urged them to be devoted husbands, responsible citizens, and diligent workers; but it also used biting satire to recast negative portrayals of working-class masculinity and to overturn established social hierarchies. In this challenge to the "macho" stereotype of working-class Mexican men, Buffington shows how the penny press contributed to the formation of working-class consciousness, facilitated the imagining of a Mexican national community, and validated working-class men as modern citizens Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgments......Page 8 Introduction......Page 12 Chapter 1: Working-Class Heroes......Page 46 Chapter 2: The One True Juárez......Page 78 Chapter 3: The Apotheosis of the Working Man......Page 112 Chapter 4: Rumbo Perdido: Transgressive Journeys into Manhood......Page 150 Chapter 5: Don Juan and the Troubled Birth of Modern Love......Page 180 Epilogue: Las Trampas Modernas......Page 224 Notes......Page 232 Bibliography......Page 282 C......Page 298 D......Page 299 H......Page 300 N......Page 301 P......Page 302 S......Page 303 W......Page 304 Z......Page 305 Working-class Heroes -- The One True Juárez -- The Apotheosis Of The Working Man -- Rumbo Perdido: Transgressive Journeys Into Manhood -- Don Juan And The Troubled Birth Of Modern Love -- Epilogue Las Trampas Modernas. Robert M. Buffington. Includes Bibliographical References (page 271-285) And Index. Analyzing the satirical Mexico City penny press from 1900 to 1910, Robert M. Buffington argues that the press offered its working-class readers alternative masculine scripts that they could adopt to challenge social hierarchies