Alvarado, Jesus (Author)
This dissertation provides a new perspective on the origins and structure of modern industry in Mexico after its independence in 1821 by arguing that cotton textile artisans played an active role in shaping the discourse and practices of the new country's political economy, in the struggles between free traders and advocates of national industry. In developing this argument, the dissertation situates artisans in the history of cotton textiles in Mexico, from their pre-colonial origins up to the American invasion of 1846. After Independence, artisans were part of a broad coalition that included elite entrepreneurs and politicians, who advanced national industry as an alternative economic project to free trade in the first debates over trade policy and the role of industry. These debates were strongly influenced by the prevailing theories of political economy, in particular those of Adam Smith, that the free-trader Mexican elites embraced after Independence. Artisans also undertook technological initiatives to renew their means of production to meet the challenge posed by British imports, the main beneficiaries of early free trade policies. Most histories of these events portray Mexico's artisans as traditional producers, "unable to innovate and therefore destined to disappear." In contrast, this dissertation highlights cotton textile artisans as active agents who helped undermine the hold of free trade policies with initiatives to support textile manufacturing in Mexico. The standard accounts, developed by historians of Mexico beginning in the nineteen thirties, follow the classical success and failure narratives, first, of the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism in the colonial period, and, after Independence, of Industrial Revolution. By demonstrating the active role of artisans in shaping this history, my dissertation problematizes these accounts and the assumptions embedded in them. The first free trade debates in Mexico belong to a remote period in history but are also oddly at home today in that country, where current debates echo the struggles of artisans and their supporters against free trade policies after independence. And, in spite of the fatalistic predictions of traditional historians, cotton textile artisans continue to make a significant contribution to Mexican culture and identity.
...MoreDescription Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 68/12 (2008). Pub. no. AAT 3294067.
Chapter
Laura Cházaro;
(2016)
Trade in Medical Instruments and Colonialist Policies between Mexico and Europe in the Nineteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB376012318/)
Article
Cox, Annette;
(2014)
Imperial Illusions: The New South's Campaign for Cotton Cloth Exports
(/isis/citation/CBB001550461/)
Article
Sukanya Banerjee;
(2020)
Ecologies of cotton
(/isis/citation/CBB733141314/)
Book
Marco Spallanzani;
(2023)
I fiorentini e il vetro veneziano (ca. 1450-1550). Fonti
(/isis/citation/CBB428429611/)
Book
Riello, Giorgio;
(2013)
Cotton: The Fabric That Made the Modern World
(/isis/citation/CBB001550465/)
Book
Cooke, Anthony;
(2010)
The Rise and Fall of the Scottish Cotton Industry, 1778--1914: “The Secret Spring”
(/isis/citation/CBB001033517/)
Article
Moujan Matin;
Mohammad Gholamnejad;
Ali Nemati Abkenar;
(2020)
‘We Must Send You a Sample’—a Persian–European Dialogue: Insights into Late Nineteenth-Century Ceramic Technology Based on Chemical Analysis of Tiles from the Ettehadieh House Complex, Tehran, Iran
(/isis/citation/CBB115394130/)
Article
Hornborg, Alf;
(2005)
Fotavtryck i bomullsfälten: Den industriella revolutionen som miljöbelastningsförskjutning
(/isis/citation/CBB000772803/)
Book
Giráldez, Arturo;
(2015)
The Age of Trade: Manila Galleons and the Dawn of the Global Economy
(/isis/citation/CBB001422147/)
Article
Takehiko Hashimoto;
(April 2021)
Making and Using Scientific Instruments in Japan: How Scholars and Craftsmen Cooperated, 1781–1853
(/isis/citation/CBB737130212/)
Book
Scott Hamilton Suter;
(2019)
A potter's progress: Emanuel Suter and the business of craft
(/isis/citation/CBB648634030/)
Book
Valérie Nègre;
(2016)
L'art et la matière: Les artisans, les architectes et la technique, 1770-1830
(/isis/citation/CBB678691921/)
Thesis
Ceccatti, John Simmons;
(2001)
Science in the Brewery: Pure Yeast Culture and the Transformation of Brewing Practices in Germany at the End of the 19th Century
(/isis/citation/CBB001562368/)
Article
Daniela Ferro;
(2019)
The authenticity of the false
(/isis/citation/CBB466145028/)
Book
Bulliet, Richard W.;
(2009)
Cotton, Climate, and Camels in Early Islamic Iran: A Moment in World History
(/isis/citation/CBB001500516/)
Book
Richard J. Follett;
Sven Beckert;
Peter A. Coclanis;
Barbara Hahn;
(2016)
Plantation kingdom: The American South and its global commodities
(/isis/citation/CBB715728996/)
Article
Parthasarathi, Prasannan;
Riello, Giorgio;
(2014)
The Indian Ocean in the Long Eighteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB001550446/)
Article
Yuan Yi;
(October 2022)
Crafted for Mass Production: Imported Spinning Machinery on the Shop Floor, China, 1910s–1920s
(/isis/citation/CBB248076434/)
Book
Asha Shukla Choubey;
(2022)
Crafts and Craftsmen in Pre-Colonial Eastern India: Technology and Culture
(/isis/citation/CBB317005179/)
Book
Hoy, Teresa Miriam Van;
(2008)
A Social History of Mexico's Railroads: Peons, Prisoners, and Priests
(/isis/citation/CBB000830888/)
Be the first to comment!