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1910 Mexico City: Space and Nation in the City of the Centenario*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Mauricio Tenorio Trillo
Mauricio Tenorio Trillo
Affiliation:
Research Professor at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), México.
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Abstract

The article focuses on the 1910 centennial celebration of Mexico's war of independence in Mexico City in order to examine the notions of modernity, cosmopolitanism and nationalism that were held by the Porfirian elite. The article first maps the celebration and thus identifies an ideal city – of comfort, modernity, style, and patriotism – that the Porfirian elite created from the 1880s to the 1910s within Mexico City. Second, it takes tours around the ideal city in order to examine how ideal views of social order, material and cultural progress, nation-building and cosmopolitanism acquired spatial and graphic expressions in the city.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , February 1996 , pp. 75 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 Woolf, Virgina, ‘Mr. Bennet and Mrs Brown’ (1924)Google Scholar, reprinted in Collected Essays, vol. 1 (London, 1966), p. 320.

2 See the ‘Programa definitivo de las ceremonias y fiestas oficiales para la celebratión del Primer Centenario de la Independencia en la Ciudad de México (acordado el 28 de Julio de 1910)’; see also the same document but annotated at the margins by the Ministry of Foreign Relations, explaining special diplomatic events and type of formalities to follow (Archivo Histórico Genaro Estrada, Secretanía de Relaciones Exteriores, Tlatelolco, Mexico City – hence SRE, Le. 101). Genaro García, Nemesio Garcia Naranjo, Alfonso Teja Zabre, Rubén Valenti, Manuel H. San Juan, Ignacio B. del Castillo were appointed official historians of the celebration, see García's, Crónica Oficial de las Fiestas del Centenario de la Independencia de México (Mexico, 1911)Google Scholar; see also Barros, E., Album gráfico de la repúlica mexicana (Mexico, 1910)Google Scholar. Regarding this book and the propaganda efforts of the Porfirian regime during the centennial celebration, see Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico City: Secretaría de Gobernación, Porfiriato, Cententrio – hence AGN GOB 909-3-1. American and French newspapers offered their pages for Mexican propaganda (AGN GOB 920-3-1). My main sources of data are the AGN, Ramo Gobernación, SCOP Obras Pùblícas and the Archívo del Ayuntamíento. However, the Genaro García collection at the Benson Library, UT-Austin, includes an impressive collection of pamphlets, paraphernalia and photographs of the centenary. About this collection, see Thomas F. Reese and Carol McMichael Reese, ‘Revolutionary Urban Legacies’. The Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Relation includes rich information on the invitation and correspondence with invited foreign missions. For the general cost of the many events of the commemorations, see approvals by Limantour in AGN GOB 910-2-5. The estimated total budget was 317,000 pesos.

3 The last proposal was submitted by the little girl María de la Luz Islas, to whom Casarín, director of the centennial commission, responded. June 1910, AGN GOB 910-3-1.

4 Many of these Iniciativas can be found in AGN GOB Centenario.

5 For examples, see AGN GOB 910-3-1 (for architects and merchants).

6 Federico Gamboa, for instance, described the popular celebrations but also the Maderista protests that took place that night, and how he himself concealed those expressions of opposition from the attention of foreign observers. Gamboa, Federico, Mi diario. Mucho de mi vida y algo de la de otros, segunda serie, vol. II (Mexico, 1938), pp. 181–93Google Scholar.

7 Part of this analysis is developed in Tenorio, Mauricio, Mexico at World's Fairs: Crafting a Modern Nation (Berkeley, CA, forthcoming 1996)Google Scholar.

8 El Faro, 19 March 1889. Reprinted by the author in Iniciativa para celebrar el Primer Centenario de la Independencia de México con una Exposición Universal (Mexico, 1893), pp. 15–19, 25–51. Medina y Ormaechea continued pushing for the celebration of such a world's fair in Mexico City, and printed the pamphlet, La Exposición Universal del Primer Centenario Mexicano (Mexico, 1894)Google Scholar.

9 By 1900, El Diario del Hogar was advocating Medina's idea, but on 5 May it announced the death of Antonio Medina y Ormaechea.

10 Gran Exposición Internacional de México que se abrirá el día 15 de septiembre de 1895 que se clausurará el día 3 de abril de 1896 (Mexico, 1894), pp. 3–10.

11 Salvador Malo was in fact one of the most important urban developers of the time. He developed the Hacienda de la Teja, the Hacienda de Anzures, and the Hacienda de la Castañeda. He was a member of The Mexico City Improvement Company, and an admirer of, and participant in, world's fairs and modern urban planning. In fact, he proposed a Barcelona-like Ensache for Mexico City, to gentrify the grounds surrounding the Paseo de la Reforma. In this regard, the most complete study of the subject is Muñoz, Jorge H. Jiménez, La traza del poder. Historia de la político y los negocios urbanos en el Distrito Federal (Mexico, 1993)Google Scholar; a reproduction of Malo's Ensache for Mexico City can be found in Benítez, Fernando, La Ciudad de México (Mexico, 1984), vol. 6Google Scholar (there is no reference on the original location of the map).

12 Agreement made between Mr. John R. Dos Passos, as legal representative of the Mexican National Exposition and Land Company, and Vicomte R. de Comely, in San Francisco, México, 22 April 1896. See AGN, Ramo Fomento, Exposiciones Internacionales – hence EXP. Box 99, Exp. 22.

13 Mexico. Fomento, Secretaría de, Memoria de la Secretaría de Fomento, 1879–1900 (Mexico, 1908)Google Scholar.

14 AGN GOB. 909-3-1.

15 The data regarding the building known today as El Museo del Chopo were furnished to me by the Department of Architecture at the Museo Nacional de la Arquitectura, at El Palacio de Bellas Artes. They possess data and pictures of the building until the 1960s, when it was abandoned after the museum of Natural History was moved to Chapultepec. Later, it was remodelled by the National University, and still stands as one of the university's exhibition sites.

16 In this regard, see Ortiz, Luis G., Prontuario … de acuerdos, bandos, circulares, decretos, leyes, reglamentos y demás disposkiones vigentes de la seretaría de Gobernación y sus despachos (Mexico, 1980–1910)Google Scholar. This document can be found in Archivo Histórico, Secretaría de Salubridad y Asistencia, Mexico City – hence SSA, Salud Pública, Impresos, and it includes those aspects related to sanitation. Another interesting contrast for the map of the ideal city is the mapping of prostitution in Porfirian Mexico City. In this regard see the insightful, though preliminary, maps and argument of I. Delgado Jordá, ‘Prostitutión, sífiles y moralidad sexual en la ciudad de México a fines del siglo XIX’, unpubl. Tesis de Licenciatura, Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Antropología Social, Mexico 1993.

17 For the cultural and urbanist analysis of this tradition, see Quesada, Santiago, La ciudad en la cultura hispana de la Edad Moderna (Barcelona, 1992)Google Scholar.

18 See Hardoy, Jorge, ‘Theory and Practice of Urban Planning in Europe, 1850–1930: Its Transfer to Latin America’, in Hardoy, J. and Morse, R. (editors), Rethinking the Latin American City (Baltimore, 1992), pp. 20–49Google Scholar. For Mexico, see Monnet, Jerôme, La ville et son double. Images et usages du centre: La parabole de Mexico (Paris, 1993), pp. 19–36Google Scholar.

19 Regarding the development of the Paseo following the style of the Champs Elysées, see Novo, Salavador, Los Paseos de la Ciudad de México (Mexico, 1980)Google Scholar. See also Barbara Tenenbaum, ‘Streetwise History – The Paseo de la Reforma and the Porfirian State’, unpubl. manuscript, p. 5.

20 See Archivo Histórico del Ayuntamiento, 3583, Exp. 17, 1889–1993.

21 In this regard, see what John Lear calls ‘segregation of wealth’, Ch. 3, ‘Space and Class in the Centennial Capital’, in Lear, John, ‘Workers, Vecinos, and Citizens: The Revolution in Mexico City, 1909–1917’, unpubl. PhD Diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1993Google Scholar, especially pp. 106 and ff. For a summary of this phenomenon in European cities, see Wagenaar, Michael, ‘Conquest of the Center or Flight to the Suburbs? Divergent Metropolitan Strategies in Europe, 1850–1914’, Journal of Urban History, vol. 19, no. 1 (11 1992), pp. 60–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 For Buenos Aires, see the various essays included in Romero, José Luis and Romero, Luis Alberto, Buenos Aires, historia de cuatro siglos, vol. I (Buenos Aires, 1983)Google Scholar, especially James R. Scobie and Aurora Ravina de Luzzi, ‘El centro, los barrios y los suburbios’, and Francisco J. Bullrich, ‘La arquitectura: el eclecticismo’; for the transformation of Buenos Aires during the 1910 centenary of Argentina's independence, see Hardoy, Jorge and Gutman, Margarita, Buenos Aires (Madrid, 1992), pp. 113–62Google Scholar. For Mexico, see Gortari, Hira de and Hernández, Regina, La ciudad de México y el Distrito Federal. Una historia compartida (Mexico, 1988)Google Scholar; Morales, María Dolores, ‘La expansión de la Ciudad de México en el siglo XIX. El caso de los fraccionamientos’, Investigaciones sobre la historia de la Ciudad de México, vol. I (Mexico, 1974)Google Scholar; the various essays and maps included in Garza, Gustavo de la (ed.), Atlas de la Ciudad de México (Mexico, 1987)Google Scholar; Jorge H. Jiménez Munõz, La traza del poder; Gortari, Hira de, ‘¿Un modelo de urbanizatión? La ciudad de México de finales del Siglo XIX’, Secuencia, no. 8 (1987)Google Scholar; Stoppa, Erika Barra, La expansión de la ciudad de México y los conflictos urbanos (1900–1930 (Mexico, 1982)Google Scholar.

23 Franciso J. Bullrich, ‘La arquitectura: el eclecticismo’, in Romero and Romero, Buenos Aires, vol. 1, pp. 173–200.

24 Barros, Album gráfico, p. 11.

25 Jiménez Muñoz presents the most complete panorama of colonias. Jiménez Muñioz, La traza del poder.

26 See Ibid.; and María Dolores Morales, ‘La Expansión de la Cid de México’; for the workers' barrios see John Lear, ‘Workers, Vecinos and Citizens’, pp. 91–143.

27 See Lira, Andrés, Comunidades indigenas frente a la ciudad de México (Mexico, 1983)Google Scholar.

28 See Sierra, Carlos, Historia de los transportes eléctricos de México (Mexico, 1976)Google Scholar; Vidrio, Manuel, ‘Sistemas de transporte y expansión urbana: los tranvías’, in Toscano, A. Moreno (ed.), Ciudad de México. Ensayo de constructión de una historia (Mexico, 1978), pp. 201–17Google Scholar.

29 For the relation between authoritarian and centralist government and inner-city interventions in Paris, Brussels, and Rome, see Michael Wagenaar, ‘Conquest of the Center’, pp. 63–71.

30 For the clear mapping of this area, see the various maps of colonias and nomenclatura included in Archivo Histórico del Ayuntamiento, 4765. Especially, see the map titled ‘Comísiòn permanente de nomenclatura de la ciudad de México, cuarteles V, VI, VII, VIII’, 1908.

31 See AGN GOB 909-10-4-3. The document included expenses reported by Manuel Escalante in the decoration of avenues and streets such as Cinco de Mayo, San Francisco, Juárez, 16 de Septiembre. It includes descriptions of those decorations and their cost. For colour sketches of this decoration see Archivo Histórico del Ayuntamiento, 4753, ‘Postes para Avenida Juárez’, ‘Postes que van de la estatua de Carlos IV al Portal de Mercaderes y San Fenando’.

32 J. Lear, ‘Workers, Vecinos’, p. 130.

33 Architect Manuel Torres Torrija, in Trentini, Francisco, Patria. El florecimiento de Mexico (The Prosperity of Mexico) (Mexico, 1906), p. 64Google Scholar. Torres Torrija made the first report of the status of colonias in Mexico City. For that report, see Jiménez Muñoz, La traza del poder, pp. 24–44.

34 In this regard, see the summary of Conzen's, M. R. G. contributions to the study of urban change in Western Europe (as product of gradual change or catastrophic change) in Peter Larkham, ‘Constraints of Urban History and Form Upon Redevelopment’, Geography, vol. 80, no. 2 (04 1995), pp. 111–24Google Scholar.

35 Most of the elite resided within the limits of the new ideal city. However, since the 1870s Porfirio Díaz had owned a house in Cadena street (at the old part of the city, today Venustiano Carranza). For a detailed description of the origins and characteristics of this house, see Tello, Carlos, El exilio. Un retrato de familia (México, 1993)Google Scholar.

36 Regarding this park, see Archivo Histórico del Ayuntamknto, Legajo 603, Exp. 6.

37 Presented to Porfirio Diaz and Eduardo Liceaga, SSA Box 6, Exp. 33.

38 Loc. cit. Quevedo argued that the total cost of the Balbuena park was 100,000 pesos. The park was also harmonious with the profits of high authorities. John Lear has shown that, according to workers' publications, in 1912 José Y. Limantout came into congressional investigation for having profited from construction of the park. See Lear, ‘Workers, Vecinos and Citizens’, p. 145.

39 See Jerôme Monnet's analysis of Mexico City as the prototype postmodern metropolis; Monnet, La ville et son double.

40 See the classic works on American cities, Bender, Thomas, Toward an Urban Vision. Ideas and Institutions in Nineteenth-Century America (Lexington, Kty, 1978)Google Scholar, and Marx, Leo, The Machine and the Garden (New York, 1964)Google Scholar. For an interesting view of the different cultural considerations of urbanisation, see Jackson, Kenneth T., Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York, 1985), especially pp. 287ffGoogle Scholar.

41 Knight, Alan, ‘Revolutionary Project, Recalcitrant People: Mexico, 1910–1940’, in Rodriguez, Jaime (ed.), The Revolutionary Process in Mexico. Essays on Political and Social Change, 1880–1940 (Los Angeles, 1990), pp. 233–5Google Scholar.

42 See Federico Gamboa's novel, Santa: the story of a country girl who migrates to the city and is corrupted by the city's evil, becoming a prostitute.

43 See Nora's, Pictre introductio n t o th e collection he edited, Les lieux de memoire, vol. I (Paris, 1989)Google Scholar, English version as ‘Between Memor y and History: Les Lieux de Memoire’, Representations, no. 26 (Spring, 1989), pp. 7–25.

44 See letter by Secretary of the Centennial Commission, Casarín, J., to Bibriesca, Juan, secretary of the Ayuntamiento of Mexico City, in which he accepted the proposal by the influential sanitary doctor Ruiz, Luis E. (02 1910)Google Scholar. Ruiz proposed to revive the old project in which each state would send statues of hijos distinguidos; according to Ruiz, by 1910 very few states had sent their statues. Throughout 1910, many states responded to the request arguing financial difficulties. See AGN GOB 910-3-1; see also Archivo Histdrico del Ayuntamiento, Legajo 2276, Exp. 56–38, and 61. In this regard, see Nash, Joe, El Paseo de la Reforma (Mexico, 1959)Google Scholar; the re-publishing of Sosa, Francisco, Las estatuas de la reforma (Mexico, 1974)Google Scholar. For the origins and early development of El Paseo, see Tenenbaum, ‘Streetwise History – The Paseo de la Reforma and the Porfirian State’.

45 Regarding this monument, see Archivo Histórico del Ayuntamiento, Legajo 60, Exp. 1; Legajo 2276, Exp. 58; and regarding the origins of a national fund for the construction of the monument, see Legajo 2276, Exp. 35.

46 See AGN GOB 909-10-4-3. About the monument, see the Legajos 1166 and 1667 of the Archivo Histórico del Ayuntamiento. See also Domínguez, José de Jesús Núñez, El monumento a la independencia. Bosquejo Histdrico (Mexico, 1930)Google Scholar; and Garcia, Samuel Ruiz, Monografia de la columna de la independencia, 1910–1958 (Mexico, 1958)Google Scholar.

47 There were 28 ‘civilised’ countries that attended: six as special diplomatic missions (Italy, Japan, the USA, Germany, Spain and France); 18 with special envoys (Honduras, Bolivia, Austria, Cuba, Costa Rica, Russia, Portugal, Holland, Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, Panama, Brazil, Belgium, Chile, Argentina, Norway and Uruguay); and three countries commissioned residents in Mexico to represent them (Switzerland, Colombia and Venezuela). Great Britain could not attend due to the death of King Edward VII and Nicaragua due to a coup d'état, though the Nicaraguan poet, Rubén Danío, who was appointed envoy of Nicaragua before the political turmoil, was treated as a national ‘Guest of Honour’ by Mexico's intelligentsia and government. See Genaro García, Crónica, and SRE LE 101.

48 SRE LE 101, 117.

49 The actual distribution was as follows: Japón, Viuda de BranifPs house (Reforma 27); Germany, Hugo Scherer's house (Reforma 3); Spain at Guillermo de Anda y Escandón (Artes 31); the USA at the Palacio Cobian in Bucareli which was acquired by the Ministry of the Interior to house its new offices; part of France's delegation was accommodated at Tomás Branif's house (Ribera de San Cosme 15); Italy at de la Torre y Mier's house (Plaza Reforma). Other houses mentioned were: Landero y Cos, Sebastian Mier, Santiago Méndez, Viuda de Martínez del Río, J. Y. Limantour, Coronel Pablo Escandón, W. Pearson, Romualdo Pasquel, Manuel Buch, Viuda de Romero Rubio and Lorenzo Elizaga. See loc. cit. and Génaro García, Crónica, pp. 25ff.

50 See Archivo Histórico del Ayuntamiento, Legajo 594, Exp. 4.

51 This proposal was made by E. Lozano, R. Nervo, Carlos Lazo de la Vega and R. Riveroll del Prado AGN GOB 910-6-1.

52 AGN GOB 907-3-1.

53 See also ‘Resumen de la historia de los trabajos de la penitenciaria de San Lázaro leido por Angel Zimbrón secretario del gobiemo del Distrito Federal’, 1900 SSA Impresos Box 2 Exp. 2/61.

54 See Romero, José María, La penitenciaría (Mexico, 1886)Google Scholar.

55 See ‘Resumen de la historia de los trabajos de la penitenciaria de San Lázaro, leido por Angel Zimbrón secretario del gobiemo del Distrito Federal’, 1900 inauguration of the penitentiary, SSA Impresos Box 2 Exp. 2/61. See also Macedo, Miguel, La criminalidad en Mexico (Mexico, 1897)Google Scholar.

56 ‘Informe leído por el señor Licenciado don Agustín M. Lazo, miembro del Consejo de Dirección de la penitenciaría del Distrito Federal, en el acto de la inauguratión de las obras de ampliatión de aquella, el 29 de septembre de 1910’, reproduced in G. Garcia, Cronica, pp. 114–16.

57 Porfirio Díaz Jr. was often favoured with contracts. He published a handsome book of pictures of the works of the manicomio. See Echegaray's 1906 inform to the Ministry of the Interior regarding the design for the mental hospital, SSA Benefica Publica, Manicomio general, Legajo 1 Exp. 10. This document includes a detailed account of the amendments made in the project by the special commission of public works. See also Congreso Médico Pan-Americano, ‘Expositión y proyecto para construir un manicomio en el Distrito Federal que presenta a la junta nombrada por el C. Ministro de Gobernación la comision especial encargada de formarla’.

58 G. García, Crónica, p. 109; and also Ramírez, Ramón, El manicomio (Mexico, 1884)Google Scholar.

89 On the Hygienic Exhibit see La salubridad e bigiene pública en los Estados Unidos Mexicanos Brevísima reseña de losprogresos alcanzados desde 1810 hasta 1910 (Mexico, 1910)Google Scholar; and SSA, Salubridad Pública, Congresos y Convenciones, Box 10, Exp. 1–19.

60 Among other things, the famous study by DrOrvaflanos, , Geografía medicay climatologia (1889)Google Scholar; studies on the eradication of yellow fever in Mexico by Dr Liceaga. See ‘Obras que remita la secretaría del Consejo a la sección de exposición de higiene y Conferencias Relativas…’ in SSA, Box 10, Exp. 11.

61 Mayorga, Mauricio Gómez, ‘La influencia francesa en la arquitectura y el urbanismo en Mexico’, in Freg, Arturo Arnaiz y (ed.), La intervention francesa y el imperio de Maximiliano tien anos después, 1862–1962 (Mexico, 1962)Google Scholar.

62 On the Columbus monument, see Pimentel, Luis García, Elmonumento elevado en la ciudad de México a Cristóbal Colón (Mexico, 1889)Google Scholar.

63 See Tenorio, Mexico at World's Fairs, chs. VI and VII; Nash, El Paseo de la Reforma; Doml'nguez, José de Jesús Nuñez, El monumento a la independencia. Bosquejo historico (Mexico, 1930)Google Scholar; García, Samuel Ruiz, Monografia de la columna de la independecia, 1910–1958 (Mexico, 1958)Google Scholar; Sosa, Francisco, Las estatuas de la Reforma (Mexico, 1974)Google Scholar; and Knight, Alan, ‘Racism, Revolution, and Indigenismo: 1910–1940’, in Graham, R. (ed.), Race in Latin America (Austin, 1990), pp. 71–114Google Scholar. Barbara Tenenbaum has also dealt with the subject, especially in regard to the first stages of the planning of the Paseo de la Reforma and the inauguration of the Cuauhtemoc monument. See ‘Murals in Stone – The Paseo de la Reforma and Porfirian Mexico, 1873–1910’, in La ciudady elcampo en la historia de México. Papers presented at the VII Conference of Mexican and the United States Historians, Oaxaca, Mexico, October 1985 (Mexico, 1992), pp. 369–81.

64 For examples of this type of arch, see sketches found in Archivo Histórico del Ayuntamiento, 4753, arches for the Paseo del la Reforma, Juárez avenue, and Independencia street.

65 For data on Rivas Mercado, see the biography of his daughter, Bradu, F., Antonieta (Mexico, 1991)Google Scholar. That Rivas Mercado's daughter became José Vasconcelos's mistress, and that she was a patron of bohemian artists, and that she killed herself in Notre Dame in Paris, gave don Antonio some historical visibility.

66 See Archivo Historico del Ayuntamiento, Legajo 116, Exp. 9, 13, and Legajo 1167, Exp. 24.

67 ‘Informe leído por el señor Ingeniero don Antonio Rivas Mercado, Director de la Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes, en el acto de inauguiracion de la Columna de la Independenca, el 16 de septiembre de 1910’, reproduced in G. Garcia, Crdnica, p. 74.

68 For an insightful analysis of the history and meaning of this symbol, see, for France, the collection of essays in Nora, P. (ed.), Les lieux de mémoire (Paris, 1984)Google Scholar first two vols.; for Brazil, Carvalho, José Murilho de made an important analysis of the symbols of the republic in Aformação das Almas. O imaginário da República no Brasil (São Paulo, 1990)Google Scholar.

69 For the understanding of republicanism as a universal value, see Nicolet, C., L'idée républicaine en France (1789–1924). Essai d'histoire critique (Paris, 1982)Google Scholar.

70 Regarding this relocation, see Archivo Histdruo del Ayuntamiento, Legajo 3603. As in many other aspects during the 1890s and 1900s, Limantour was extremely influential in the entire organisation of the centennial celebration. All expenditures had to be approved by him, and often he returned the approvals with many commentaries that he directly expressed to the president. Thus, often his suggestions were law. See, for instance, AGN GOB 910-2-5, in which Limantour acknowledges having received the final version of the programme for the centenario and he returned it with the budget approved but with many comments: For instance: ‘la exposition de flora y fauna nacionales del día 1 de septiembre, ¿no estaí mejor el día 2 que tiene libre la mañana?’ ‘Me parece conveniente que el presidente de la república sea quien presida la inauguratión del anfiteatro de la escuela preparatoria, por tratarse de una obra que habra costado mas de un millon de pesos…’ Small wonder, when Ministers proposed projects for the celebration they often said, as Justo Sierra did, ‘¿quéle parece a nuestro amigo Limantour? Al Sr. Presidente le gusta la idea’. See Sierra's letter to Corral, 25 Feb. 1910, making some amendments to the original plan of the Ministry of Public Education, AGN GOB. 910-2-5. In this regard see also Baranda, Marta, ‘José Yves Limantour juzgado por figuras claves del porfiriato’, Ustudios de Historia Moderna y Contemporanea de México no. 9 (1983), pp. 97–136Google Scholar.

71 Formed by distinguished and wealthy members of the Porfirian elite, José Landero y Cos, Gabriel Mancera, Carlos Rivas, Carlos Herrera, Genaro García (the only historian of the team), and Ignacio de la Barra. See ‘Informe al presidente de la republica respecto al monumento a Juárez’, by de la Barra, June 1910, AGN GOB. 906-4-2.

72 Loc. cit.

73 Total cost: 299,438 pesos.

74 ‘Discurso pronunciado por el señor Licenciado don Carlos Robles en el acto de inauguración del monumento a Benito Juárez, el 18 de septiembre de 1910’, reproduced in G. Garcia, Cronica, p. 80.

75 See results of the 1906 contest for a Juarez monument; especially, see the project in Zapoteco style (including illustration). See Mercado, Antonio Rivas, Mariscal, Nicolas, León, Velazquez de, in El Artey la Ciencia, vol. 7, no. 11 (05, 1906), pp. 281–9Google Scholar.

76 This is the figure given by the original plan, though Garcia mentioned that only 280 persons participated.

77 See original AGN GOB 909-3-1.

78 See approval of this proposal in AG N GO B 910-3-1, proposed by J. Schafer.

79 Genaro García, Crónica, pp. 148–152.

80 See original plan in AGN GOB 909-3-1.

81 The state of Morelos was asked for 250 Indians. The governor decided to send them, but then he wrote to Casatín explaining that Indians decided no t to travel to Mexico City, because ‘ha corrido el rumor qu e de México los mandarian a San Luis Potosí donde hay Guerra, por lo que se niegan a ir’. AGN GOB 909-3-1.

82 There are letters to the Centro Vasco, Asturiano and Castellano. Loc. cit.

83 For an analysis of scientific politics, see Hale, Charles, The Transformation of Liberalism (Princeton, 1989)Google Scholar.

84 See Adas del XVII Congreso International de Amerkanistas, Sección Mexico (Mexico, 1910). The president of the Mexican section of the Congress was Justo Sierra, and it was attended by mainstream scholars on anthropology and archaeology (among them, Edward Seler, Franz Boas). For the history of these congresses see Comas, Juan, Cien anos de congresos internacionales de amerkanistas (Mexico, 1974)Google Scholar; and for the history of the international school of anthropology see Godoy, Ricardo, ‘Franz Boas and his Plans for an International School of American Archaeology and Ethnology in Mexico’, Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences, vol. 13 (1977), pp. 228–423.0.CO;2-S>CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

86 In this regard, see Alan Knight, 'Racism, Revolution, and Indigenismo.

86 XVII Congreso International de Amerkanistas, p. 8.

87 In this regard, see León, Jesús Díaz de, ‘Concepto del indianismo en Mexico’, in Concur so cientificoy arthtico del Centenario (Mexico, 1911), P. 23Google Scholar.

88 Jesús Díaz de León, ‘Concepto del indianismo’, p. 23. Along these lines, see also ‘Ptopuesta de una exposición etnográfica durante las fiestas del centenario de la independencia nacional’. AGN GOB 909-3-1.

89 ‘Discurso pronunciado por el seiior General Don Porfirio Diáz, presidente de la república, al recibir del Excelentísimo señor Embajador de España las reliquias de José María Morelos, el 17 de septiembre de 1910’, reproduced by G. Garcia, Cronica, p. 23.

90 Discurso pronunciado por el señior don Fenando Pimentel y Fagoaga, presidente del Ayuntamiento Constitucional de la ciudad de México, en el acto de dedicatión de la Av. Isabel la Católica, el 31 de agosto de 1910', reproduced by G. García, Crónica, p. 45.

91 For example, Eduardo Fernández Guerra proposed to make a film that would be exhibited at municipal palaces to make the history of Mexico's independence enjoyable and communicable to all people. AGN GOB 909-3-1. There is no direct response to this initiative, but popular performances of movies took place on 15 and 16 September in all the city theatres. See AGN GOB 910-3-1. Out of the many films that were made during the Centenario, very few survived. For a detailed explanation of these films, see Leal, Juan Felipe, Barraza, Eduardo and Jablonska, Alejandro, Vistas que no se ven. Filmografia mexicana, 1896–1910 (Mexico, 1993)Google Scholar.

92 The proposal was sent from Veracruz by Huerta Vargaz. Parra completely agreed with the amends. The fourth stanza was as follows: ‘Del guerrero inmortal de Zempoala/te defiende la espada terrible/tu sagrado pendón tricolor/y sera del feliz mexicano/en la paz y en la guerra el caudillo/porque el supo sus armas de brillo/cincundar en los campos de honor.’ The seventh went as follows: ‘Si a la lid contra huestes enemiga/los convoca la tropa guerrera/de Iturbide la sacra bandera/Mexicanos valientes seguid.’ AGN GOB 907-5-1.

93 Santacilia, Carlos Obregón, El Monumento a la Revolución (Mexico, 1940)Google Scholar.

94 Calvino, Italo, Invisible Cities, translated by Weaver, William (New York, 1972), p. 163Google Scholar.