Fonógrafos ambulantes en tiempos de don Porfirio: Hacia una historia popular de los sonidos (Ciudad de México, 1894–1903)

Abstract

At the end of the nineteenth century, talking machines stopped being inaccessible to the popular sectors and became objects of daily Mexican life. It was in this context that dozens of individuals, aware of the popular predilection for recorded music and interaction with sound technologies, decided to request authorization from the city council of Mexico City to rent out their phonographs on public roads. They would receive a penny for each phonogram listened to by their clients. The need of these popular entrepreneurs for an attractive and varied repertoire prompted the emergence of shops and small recording studios in the city. This article attempts to reconstruct this forgotten chapter in the business and cultural history of Mexico. To do this, we will not only reveal the identities of the phonographers, the objects they rented, and the places they traveled but also the accusations they faced for the spread of hearing diseases and the reproduction of obscene songs. In general, this research highlights the methodological relevance of an approach that rethinks the past, having as its central axis the study of the processes of commercialization and consumption of sounds in the daily life of cities.