Street in downtown Buenos Aires.
This photo is taken between 1850 and 1900 in Downtown Buenos Aires, Argentina. In the picture, we see a lot of the European-style suits, European-style buildings, and cars. Even it is difficult to recognize the color of the people in the picture, but we still can see the black man in the lower-left corner dressed in a fancy suit. In the center of the photograph, a child in a sailor’s suit, but we can tell the color of this child is more like light skin; the child looks very much like a white person.
Argentina emerged as one of the most dynamic economies of the 20th century. Stability has brought a boom in export-oriented agriculture, as well as migration. It attracted large numbers of European immigrants. Immigrants have brought diversity to Argentina. Thus, Intermarriage has gradually become a trend and also a political way to merge with the elite. “Troubled by the prospects for their nations to become civilized because of the racial makeup of their societies, Latin American elites undertook any number of projects to improve the race. Where possible, they gradually erased the stain of blackness or Indianness through Intermarriage or reclassification. Many were reclassified as trigueño or “wheat-colored.” Others hoped for redemption through education, modernization, hygiene, nutrition, healthy motherhood, and any number of other improvements, believing that if they could elevate the poor, racially compromised masses out of their civilizational slumber, their societies might prosper.” (Dawson 76)
On the economic side, the development of agriculture also drives the Argentine industry. Argentina’s export trade brought great wealth to the country and its people in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Therefore, “the very extensiveness of the agriculture practiced, and the sheer volume of freight involved necessitated the creation of a widespread transportation network which indirectly led to the rapid unification of the domestic market, focusing on the major ports of shipment. These countries display the characteristics of regions referred to earlier as constituting an expanding frontier of the industrializing European economy.” (Furtado 268) Although the immigrants were mainly free, they cultivated the relations between Argentina’s elite and Europe, which played a positive role in economic development. The economic activities of immigrants also form actual control over Argentina’s economic development direction. This is also the reason why we can see many European-style buildings in the pictures. “Latin Americans wanted to prove that their countries were as capable as any other of participating in the endless cycles of innovation, artistic and scientific that characterized modernity. (Furtado 268)
In conclusion, Argentina’s export trade brought great wealth to the country and its people in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; stability has brought a boom in export-oriented agriculture, as well as migration. The collapse of the colonial political order gave Latin America the concept of defining the world’s nations. Argentina became one of the most prosperous countries in the world during its golden years.”
Citation:
Celso Furtado, Economic Development of Latin America: Historical Background and Contemporary Problems, trans. Suzette Macedo (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 47–51. © 1976 Cambridge University Press. Reproduced with permission.
Problems in Modern Latin American History (Latin American Silhouettes) (p. 286). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Kindle Edition.