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ABSTRACT
This article uses several epidemics that beset Buenos Aires between 1867 and 1871 as a lens through which to investigate a period in which urban elites registered with both anxiety and exhilaration the changes that their city was undergoing. In an effort to limit the spread of disease, elites noticed that the growing number of inhabitants and the connected anonymity had rendered their traditional system of social control obsolete. One of the main features of this traditional system consisted of a usage of space that relied on the city's grid plan. During the epidemics, some among the elites protested against the ineffectiveness of this system, which in their eyes pertained to the older ancien régime tradition. Notwithstanding their efforts, they failed to implement concrete alternatives. They were nonetheless able to express a new urban imaginary, which they viewed as more apt to respond to the new challenges engendered by the new big-city dimension. Connecting these findings with the wider debate on the history of grid plans, the article argues that this imaginary was related to a new conception of the grid that did not replace previous conceptions and practices of urban control, but rather overlapped and intertwined with them.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 See for instance, Michele Acuto et al., Seeing COVID-19 through an Urban Lens; Reuben Rose-Redwood et al., Geographies of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
2 Achim Landwehr, Die Kunst, sich nicht allzu sicher zu sein.
3 Charles Rosenberg, The Cholera Years, 4; Christopher Hamlin, Cholera, 10.
4 Louis Chevalier, Labouring Classes and Dangerous Classes; Roderick E. McGrew, Russia and the Cholera; Asa Briggs, Cholera and Society in the Nineteenth Century; Charles Rosenberg, The Cholera Years.
5 Roderick E. McGrew, The First Cholera Epidemic and Social History, 71; Christopher Hamlin, Cholera, 11.
6 Michael Durey, The Return of the Plague, 1.
7 With regard to the press, my research focused on one newspaper in particular, La Tribuna, which was one of the key press organs of the city's elites. One of the specific features of this newspaper was to host discussions - and therefore also discordant opinions - on a wide range of topics. For a broader contextualization of the role of the press in Argentinian elite society, see Fabio Wasserman, Prensa, política y orden social en Buenos Aires; Hilda Sabato, Nuevos espacios de formación y actuación intelectual.
8 I present in more detail the project of writing a critical history of elites in Antonio Carbone, Park, Tenement, Slaughterhouse.
9 Fernando Aliata, La ciudad Regular; Adrián Gorelik, La grilla y el parque.
10 Fernando Aliata, La ciudad Regular; Fernando Aliata, Cultura urbana y organización del territorio.
11 Adrián Gorelik, La grilla y el parque; Adrián Gorelik, A Metropolis in the Pampas.
12 Adrián Gorelik, La grilla y el parque, 51–84.
13 Luis Abel Orquera, Un acta y un plano; Horacio Pando, Distribución de las tierras de Garay.
14 Mónica Quijada, El paradigma de la homogeneidad.
15 Graciela Favelukes, Figuras y paradigmas; Fernando Aliata, La ciudad regular.
16 Roy Hora, Introducción; John Lynch, Argentine Caudillo; González Bernaldo de Quirós, Pilar, Civilité et politique aux origines de la nation argentine.
17 On the connection between grid and retrievability see Bernhard Siegert, Cultural Techniques.
18 Maximiliano R. Fiquepron, Morir en las grandes pestes; Antonio Carbone, Park, Tenement, Slaughterhouse; Adriana Alvarez, Entre muerte y mosquitos; Miguel Angel Scenna, Cuando murió Buenos Aires, 1871; Adriana Alvarez, Irene Molinari and Daniel Reynoso, Historias de enfermedades, salud y medicina en la Argentina de los siglos XIX–XX; Diego Armus, El descubrimiento de la enfermedad como problema social; Héctor Recalde, Las epidemias de cólera (1856–1895).
19 Anonymous, “In the Suburbs,” The Standard, March 19, 1871.
20 Antonio Carbone, Provincializing Industry; Antonio Carbone, Park, Tenement, Slaughterhouse.
21 Instituto Histórico de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, La vivienda colectiva en la ciudad de Buenos Aires.
22 Anonymous, “The state of the city,” The Standard, April 21, 1867.
23 Jorge L. Dupuis, “Medidas urgentes,” La Tribuna, March 22, 1871.
24 Miguel Puiggari, Sobre la inocuidad de los saladeros, 45–46.
25 Anonymous, “Curiosidad del tiempo de peste,” La Tribuna, March 21, 1871.
26 Charles S. Sargent, The Spatial Evolution of Greater Buenos Aires, 1870–1930, 25.
27 Jorge L. Dupuis, “Medidas urgentes,” La Tribuna, March 22, 1871.
28 Maximiliano R. Fiquepron, Los vecinos de Buenos Aires ante las epidemias de cólera y fiebre amarilla (1856–1886); Daniel Omar De Lucía, Buenos Aires.
29 See for instance the reports: Comisión de higiene de la parroquia de la Piedad, Memoria; Comisión de hijiene de la parroquia de San Ignacio, Memoria; Comisión de hijiene de la parroquia de San Miguel, Memoria; Comisión Filantrópica de la Catedral al Norte, Memoria de la comisión filantrópica de la parroquia de la Catedral al Norte a sus convecinos.
30 Anonymous, “La actual municipalidad y la conciencia pública,” La Tribuna, December 17, 1867; Anonymous, “El meeting de ayer,” La Tribuna, December 18, 1867; Anonymous, “Lo que ha sido el meeting,” La Tribuna, December 19, 1867; Héctor F. Varela, “Comision de Salubridad Pública,” La Tribuna, December 24, 1867.
31 Anonymous, “La Comision Popular y la Municipalidad,” La Tribuna, March 22, 1871.
32 Héctor F. Varela, “Reorganizacion de la Comision Popular,” La Tribuna, March 22, 1871. 6126.
33 Antonio Carbone, Park, Tenement, Slaughterhouse; Oreste Carlos Cansanello, Ciudadano/Vecino.
34 Héctor F. Varela, “Epidemia de 1871,” La Tribuna, July 14, 1871.
35 González Bernaldo de Quirós, Pilar, Civilité et politique aux origines de la nation argentine, 219 [translation of author]. On this issue see also Mark D. Szuchman, Constructing the City, Constructing the State.
36 Héctor F. Varela, “Reorganizacion de la Comision Popular,” La Tribuna, March 22, 1871.
37 Dan Stanislawski, The Origin and the Spread of the Grid-Pattern Town.
38 Spiro Kostof, The City Shaped.
39 For a classic comparison between Buenos Aires and New York, see Samuel L. Baily, Immigrants in the Land of Promise.
40 Peter Marcuse, The Grid as city Plan.
41 Ibid., 291.
42 Peter Marcuse, The Grid as City Plan, 291.
43 Ibid., 295–96.
44 Reuben Rose-Redwood and Liora Bigon, Gridded Spaces, Gridded Worlds.
45 Reuben Rose-Redwood, Genealogies of the Grid, 50.
46 Reuben Rose-Redwood, Mythologies of the Grid in the Empire City, 1811-2011.
47 Adrián Gorelik, La grilla y el parque; Diego Armus, The Ailing City; Diego Armus, Tango, Gender, and Tuberculosis in Buenos Aires, 1900–1940.
48 Peter Marcuse, The grid as city plan.
49 Reuben Rose-Redwood and Liora Bigon, Gridded Spaces, Gridded Worlds.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Antonio Carbone
Dr. des. Antonio Carbone is currently a Post-Doc in Modern History at the German Historical Institute in Rome. He holds a PhD in History from Berlin's Technical University and studied History, Philosophy, and Urban Studies in Berlin and Rome. He also worked as lecturer at the Global History department of the Freie Universität Berlin. With a regional focus on Europe and Latin America, his interests range from global and urban history to the history of science and ideas.