Workers Go Shopping in Argentina: The Rise of Popular Consumer Culture

Acknowledgments

ix AcknowledgMents During my time as a graduate student at Indiana University, I benefited from the expertise of a group of talented historians of Latin America. Arlene Díaz, Jeff Gould, Peter Guardino, and Danny James made graduate school unceremonious and intellectually stimulating. I want to thank Danny especially for supporting my choices throughout my studies and Peter for his frank advice in all things academic. Konstantin Dierks was truly generous with his counsel and encouragement throughout graduate school. I would like to thank him for being an avid and thoughtful reader from the start. Mike Grossberg offered his invaluable advice at a key moment during the final stage of graduate school. I am also grateful to Matt Karush, Eduardo Elena, Rebekah Pite, Katharine French-Fuller, and Oscar Chamosa for sharing their enthusiasm and knowledge of Argentine history in conferences and conversations, and to Julio Moreno, Jeffrey Pilcher, Ricardo Salvatore, and Donna Guy for their x Acknowledgments comments on my work at different stages of this project. Thanks also go to William Ratliff at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford University; to Rosario Bernatene, Karina Ramacciotti, Fernando Remedi, and Pablo Gerchunoff for answering my queries; and to Cecilia Wingerter for her help with research in Rosario. I greatly appreciate the constructive comments Monica Perales and Sandra McGee Deutsch made after reading chapter 6. I owe thanks to Wendy Gosselin for proofreading my writing and to Beatriz “Tati” Muñoz at the Communist Party Archives in Buenos Aires for her kindness and aid over the years. I am truly grateful to Giovanna Urdangarain and Craig Wayson for their endless generosity, friendship, and unfailing support both in Bloomington and beyond. I want to express my profound gratitude to all the men and women who spent days sharing their memories and stories with me. Their generosity, thoughtfulness, and insights made me think of the past in a different way and contributed to my understanding of methodology, ethical research, and the subjectivity of knowledge in ways I could not have imagined before meeting them. I also want to convey my appreciation to the several institutions that have provided generous financial assistance throughout many phases of my research: the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the John W. Hartman Center at Duke University, the Social Science Research Council, the American Historical Association, the Indiana University Department of History and Graduate School, the Indiana University Graduate and Professional Student Organization, and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies also at Indiana University. At the University of Houston, I want to thank the Department of History, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Provost Office, and the Division of Research. Many colleagues at the University of Houston have read proposals or chapters and offered me valuable advice and guidance about several aspects of this project and academic life in general. Thanks go to Susan Kellogg, Thomas O’Brien, John Hart, Kathleen Brosnan, Martin Melosi, Catherine Patterson, Monica Perales, James Schafer, Landon Storrs, Nancy Young, Xiaoping Cong, Todd Romero, Guadalupe San Miguel, Philip Howard, and Eric Walther. I am also very grateful to Lorena López at the Department of History for her valuable assistance. Special thanks go to W. Clark Whitehorn, editor in chief of the University of New Mexico Press, for his engagement with this project from the very beginning, his sound guidance, and his enormous patience. I also extend xi Acknowledgments thanks to Liam Utz Wiegner for the editing and to Elise McHugh, Felicia Cedillos, and Elizabeth Hadas for their assistance at the Press. I would also like to thank the two outside readers for their constructive suggestions and kind assessment of my work. My friends in Argentina—Vanina Broda, Julieta Viglioni, Mariela Rodriguez, Julieta López, María José Ceruti, Milena Paglini, and Gabriela Terrazino—helped me reconnect with “real life” after too many hours in the archives and provided unconditional reassurance, optimism, and a lot of fun. Finally, I could not have completed this book without the love and encouragement of César Seveso. I owe him many things, from incisive readings of my work and domestic multitasking to the laughter he always managed to bring to my desk, with the help of our dog Fredo, when writing became frustrating. César is a true example of honesty and dedication. His passion for life and his integrity have encouraged me to never stop searching...