Write a paper of at least 1,000 words (including notes and bibliography) discussing one (not two or three) of the following broadsheets produced in Mexico during the first decade of the twentieth century, 1902 to 1911 to be precise. The goal of this assignment is to practice the skills of primary source interpretation. Historians give precedence to documents that come from the time and place they are studying. Although these primary sources give us the most direct access to the voices of our subjects, there are distinct limitations in what they can tell us because of the author’s perspective, the conditions under which they were produced, and our own cultural distance from the source. For interpretations of primary sources to be convincing, they must examine the text, context, and subtext of the source. The text is what the source actually says, the precise words or, in this case, images. The context includes the conditions under which the texts were produced as well as the historical events and social relationships that inform the text. The hardest thing for historians to understand, and therefore the most interesting, are the subtexts, the hidden meanings and “dog whistles” that people in the know would recognize, although other contemporary observers might miss them.
I do not intend for you to translate and analyze the Spanish text. Instead, I want you to describe and interpret the pictures and show how they helped readers from the popular classes (who may not have been able to read in any event) to understand and assign meaning to changes that were taking place within Mexican society during the age of Don Porfirio. For background context on the artist, I encourage you to read the article by Robert Buffington and Jesus Osciel Salazar, “José Guadalupe Posada and Visual Culture in Porfirian Mexico.” But the bulk of your essay should describe in detail the pictures and discuss what they say about popular perspectives on distinctions of social class at a picnic in the park, potentially dangerous new technologies introduced as part of Porfirian progress, and how the world was turned upside down by the outbreak of revolution in 1910?
I encourage you to pay particular attention to those parts of the image that are not entirely clear. Not only is it acceptable to admit that we don’t understand everything about the past, the act of recognizing the limits of our knowledge is the first step to expanding that knowledge by opening new windows on the mental worlds of people who lived in the past.
Acceptable Images:
“The Skeleton’s Great Mole”
https://digital.iai.spk-berlin.de/viewer/image/827769504/1/LOG_0000/ (Links to an external site.)
“The Great Electric Skeleton”
https://digital.iai.spk-berlin.de/viewer/image/827764898/1/LOG_0000/ (Links to an external site.)
“The Maderista Skeleton”
https://digital.iai.spk-berlin.de/viewer/image/827764766/1/LOG_0000/ (Links to an external site.)
Paper Format
Please double-space your papers. Bibliographies and footnotes or endnotes should follow the latest version of Chicago Manual of Style. Note the use of short citations for all notes. The Chicago Manual includes multiple versions, some of which ask you to spell out the complete citation, including publication information, the first time a source is referenced in the notes, but for this class, just use the last name, short title, and page numbers if any. Here are some common examples:
Bibliography
Buffington, Robert, and Jesus Osciel Salazar. “José Guadalupe Posada and Visual Culture in Porfirian Mexico.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedias: Latin American History, edited by William H. Beezley. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199366439.013.587.
“Muralismo Mexicano.” http://museopalaciodebellasartes.gob.mx/muralismo-mexicano/ (Links to an external site.). Accessed April 30, 2020.
Nemser, Daniel. “‘To Avoid This Mixture’: Rethinking Pulque in Colonial Mexico City.” Food and Foodways 19 (2011): 98-121.
Pineda, Encarnación. Encarnación’s Kitchen: Mexican Recipes from Nineteenth-Century California. Translated by Dan Strehl. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
Footnotes
1Pineda, Encarnación’s Kitchen, 45-52.
2Buffington and Osciel Salazar, “José Guadalupe Posada.”
3“Muralismo Mexicano.”
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