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Hispanic American Historical Review 84.1 (2004) 159-160



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Revolution in the Street: Women, Workers, and Urban Protest in Veracruz, 1870-1927. By Andrew Grant Wood. Latin American Silhouettes. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 2001. Photographs. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. xxiii, 239 pp. Cloth, $60.00.

This solidly researched and crisply written study of the revolutionary process in Veracruz between 1870 and 1927 is a welcome contribution to the urban history of twentieth-century Mexico. It traces the emergence of what the author calls "one of the most dynamic urban protests in twentieth-century Mexico: the Veracruz tenants' movement" (p. xv). Wood nicely reveals how this broad-based movement, which united working men and women around household issues, grew out of long-standing complaints over Porfirian modernization schemes that had sharpened divisions between elite and popular classes. The urban poor, Wood argues, "shared a common culture and sense of moral outrage" (p. 214) and mobilized to press for significant housing reform, taking advantage of the "vacuum of sovereignty" (p. xvii, citing James C. Scott) between 1910 and 1917. Lawmakers like constitutionalist Governor Cándido Aguilar responded, promulgating a 1915 housing reform bill that fixed rent increases at no more than 10 percent annually. This reform "temporarily satisfied at least a few of the tenants' demands" (p. 33), and activism subsided during the next five years. Nonetheless, it was during this lull, the author maintains, that the tenant movement transformed into a social movement. With the 1920 election of Obregonista governor Adalberto Tejeda, the movement rekindled. Willing to court popular groups and committed (at least rhetorically) to "a gradual transition to socialism" (p. 52), Tejeda responded to the increased number of protests, which included land invasions and a general strike in 1922. The movement centered on Herón Proal, anarchist head of the Revolutionary Syndicate of Tenants. In 1923, tenants succeeded in pushing for legislation that fixed rent rates at no more than 9 percent of the property's value. After promulgating the reform, Callista forces then turned on the tenants, silencing them "mainly through alternate uses of repression and co-optation" (p. 202). Nonetheless, the author concludes, the tenant movement constituted "an urban rebellion against elements of the revolutionary elite [and] an essential ingredient in the negotiation of the new social order" (p. 214).

There are a few points where Wood could have pushed his analysis further. For instance, he argues that the tentants' movement grew out of a "common culture and a sense of moral outrage" (p. 214) but provides precious little understanding of what actually constituted this shared culture and moral sense. All too often, tenants are cast and analyzed exclusively as members of the Proal-led organization. The author gives little voice to women, beyond a group of politicized prostitutes and a small number of radical feminists, and does not include gender in his analysis. Claims, for instance, that women played a "central role" (p. 80) in the 40,000-strong tenants' movement are thus difficult to sustain. Subsequently, the actual nature and [End Page 159] level of political negotiation the author maintains occurred "from below" remains analytically murky. Nonetheless, Wood has given us an important contribution to the field.



Steven J. Bachelor
Roosevelt University

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