Revolutionary Mexico Research Articles

From the Copper-Colored Sons of Montezuma to Comrade Pancho Villa: The Radicalizing Effect of Mexican Revolutionaries on the Texas Socialist Party, 1910–1917

This article argues that differing political reactions to the Mexican Revolution, even before differences over World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution, led to the initial fracturing of the Socialist Party in the United States during the 1910s. Texas Socialists had long been at odds with the dominant right wing of the SP headed by Victor Berger over how the party should be organized. But once Mexican revolutionaries began interacting with Texas Socialists, this fight expanded from one of internal party organizing to one over how a socialist transformation of the United States should be conducted. While the Berger wing of the SP took a noninterventionist stance toward revolutionary Mexico, the Texas SP went further in calling for the Mexican Revolution to be emulated in Texas as it also challenged their white supremacist views. Through common political struggle, many white Texas Socialists came to view Mexican Americans and Mexicans not as slavish peons but as fellow fighters.

Pan American Women: U.S. Internationalists and Revolutionary Mexico. By Megan Threlkeld. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. Pp. 246. Introduction. Notes. Index. Acknowledgments. $45.00 cloth.

Pan American Women: U.S. Internationalists and Revolutionary Mexico. By Megan Threlkeld. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. Pp. 246. Introduction. Notes. Index. Acknowledgments. $45.00 cloth.

“Mexicans are good flyers”: militarized airpower, aviation idols, and aviation diplomacy in revolutionary Mexico

This article examines the evolution of military aviation in Mexico, a process that started in the final months of the Porfiriato and continued throughout the 1910–1920 Revolutionary War. The improvements and gradual standardization of government aircraft through the reconstruction period of the following two decades helped ensure the defeat of numerous military rebellions and popular insurrections. The revolutionary regimes of this period also manipulated the image of famous federal aviators to promote a discourse of modernization and development prior to World War II. The pervasive influence of private and public US influences was evident throughout this time, in spite of nationalist government rhetoric.

Revolutionary Mexico, the Sovereign People and the Problem of Men with Guns

Revolutionary Mexico, the Sovereign People and the Problem of Men with Guns

Pan American Women: U.S. Internationalists and Revolutionary Mexico. By Megan Threlkeld. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014, p. 246

Pan American Women: U.S. Internationalists and Revolutionary Mexico. By Megan Threlkeld. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014, p. 246

Territories of empire: U.S. writing from the Louisiana Purchase to Mexican independence

Contents Introduction 1: Empire by Deferral 2: The Limits of Republican Empire 3: Opening the Door to Mexico 4: Timothy Flint's Happy Revolution in Mexico 5: Continental Divide Epilogue Bibliography Index

The Impact of the Mexican Revolution in Inter-American Politics: U.S.–Mexican Relations and U.S. Foreign Policy at the Fifth Pan-American Conference of 1923

This paper examines the overlooked influence of United States (U.S.)–Mexico relations and the Mexican Revolution in inter-American politics through a history of the Fifth Pan-American Conference of 1923. By 1923, the U.S. government had not recognised Mexico's revolutionary regime, which prevented Mexican participation in the preparatory meetings for the conference to be held in Santiago, Chile. When Mexico controversially refused to send a delegation, U.S.–Mexican politics inspired a debate over inter-American politics and U.S. foreign policy that played out at the conference. U.S.–Mexican relations opened a critical moment in which delegations with competing interests vis-à-vis the United States battled each other to try to influence U.S. foreign policy. Criticism of U.S. foreign policy hastened U.S. diplomatic recognition of Mexico's revolutionary government and produced discussions on multilateralism in the Americas. This article thus reveals the rich influence of the Mexican Revolution in the Americas and the malleability of U.S. power.

Pan American Women: U.S. Internationalists and Revolutionary Mexico by Megan Threlkeld (review)

PAN AMERICAN WOMEN: U.S. Internationalists and Revolutionary Mexico. By Megan Threlkeld. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2014.In her text Women: U.S. Internationalists and Revolutionary Mexico, Megan Threlkeld illuminates the conflicted and sometimes contentious relationship between feminists of the early-twentieth century, and Mexican women of the same era who sought to establish their own sense of cultural empowerment alongside growing nationalism resulting from the Mexican Revolution. Threlkeld reveals that attempts to establish mutually beneficial relationships between feminists and Mexican nationalists/feminists were complicated by political factors, including U.S. imperialist attitudes in regards to the natural resources available in Mexico, as well as better known global conflicts such as the Mexican Revolution, The Great Depression, and World War II.At the same time such Pan American feminist relationships, as they were pursued by a collection of woman-led groups and institutions and manifested through a variety of means, were plagued by interpersonal conflict, racist attitudes on behalf of women, and the real-life concerns of Mexican women navigating the shifting political landscape of Mexico.Threlkeld's research is impeccable and dense with historical documentation that seems to have received far too little attention in the arenas of history, politics, or feminism. The text is sharply factual, so much so that at times it only touches upon cultural biases that likely have deeper roots in America's own conflicted racial history. For example, Carrie Chapman Catt's reported contention that Mexican women were back on the evolutionary scale could easily be attached to the popularity of eugenics in the United States during this era, anxieties regarding immigration and race relations after the Civil War, and even the forced relocation of Native Americans in the century before (63).Likewise, Threlkeld's text could also be used to further our understanding of gender specific legislation and its success in the U.S. before this time. Florence Kelley's relentless pursuit of such legislation would not be replicated in Mexico, and Threlkeld clearly enunciates how this is rooted in the distinct needs of Mexican women who distrusted feminists. feminists, who sometimes approached Mexican women with attitudes of superiority, also failed to understand how Mexican women could choose to identify with their nationality before they could identify with their gender, and were thus only interested in seeing Mexican women as women, and not as Mexican revolutionaries. …

Multinationals and Gender: Singer Sewing Machine and Marketing in Mexico, 1890–1930

Headquartered in the United States, the Singer Sewing Machine Co. did business all around the world in the early twentieth century. It regularly encountered wars, economic nationalism, and revolutions; in response, it normally created subsidiaries or gave in to expropriation. After the revolution in Mexico (1910–1920), Singer's marketing organization maintained normal operations and even prospered. The company succeeded, in part, by constantly associating the sewing machine with the idea of “modern” womanhood in Revolutionary Mexico. By revealing Singer's marketing strategies and focusing on gender, this article shows that multinational corporations and Latin American governments were not always at odds and could sometimes forge a profitable relationship.

Geopolitics, transnational solidarity or diaspora nationalism? The global career of M.N. Roy, 1915–1930

This article examines the global travels and anti-colonial thought of the Indian revolutionary Manabendra Nath Roy. It focuses particularly on his little explored stay in revolutionary Mexico, where he became a founder of the Mexican Communist Party in 1919. Drawing on archival sources from various countries and Roy's own writings, the article situates Roy's exploits somewhere between a global anti-colonialism, transnational solidarity and diasporic nationalism. It explores particularly the possibilities and the limits of an image of Asia and Latin America as regions united in their oppression by imperialism, and warranting shared anti-colonial strategies in the framework of international Communism.

Love and Romance in Revolutionary Mexico: Transnational Cinema Comes of Age

:Until the late 1980s, love in revolutionary epics followed distinctly national imperatives, comparative similarities existing at a superficial level. Not until Luis Puenzo's Old Gringo (1989) and Alfonso Arau's Como Agua Para Chocolate (1992) would films of the Revolution offer truly transnational stories, ones involving love in time of war.

The religious origins of class coalitions: Elite participation in religiously motivated peasant rebellions in Mexico, Zimbabwe, and India

This article explains why elite classes participate in religiously motivated peasant rebellions. This question is important because, although elite resources are required to overcome collective action barriers, extant research ignores why elites collaborate in religiously motivated peasant rebellions. The article compares the Moplah Rebellion in colonial India, the Cristero Rebellion in revolutionary Mexico, and the Chimurenga Rebellion in white-controlled Zimbabwe to test three common explanations for elite participation: low inequality between elites and peasants; moderate political repression or opportunity; and shared religious organizations with the peasantry. The findings demonstrate that elite cooperation is critically contingent on shared religion because it creates cross-class ideologies and lowers the costs of participation by elites. However, the effects of inequality of wealth and political opportunities are inconclusive. By doing so, the article introduces a theory of elite participation that can be tested and refined to understand ongoing religiously motivated rebellions in agrarian societies as disparate as Pakistan, Nigeria, and the Philippines.

Art and Revolution in Mexico

This special issue of Third Text on Art and Revolution in Mexico stems from the editors' ongoing interests in, explorations of, and dialogue with Mexican art. It is dedicated in loving memory to Da...

Lineages of the Mexican Revolution (1910–1940)

This article articulates the significance and multiplicity of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) and its legacies and sets the stage for this special issue on Art and Revolution in Mexico. In particular, a line is drawn between scholars who examine and contribute to the comprehension of the diverse nature of the war and its legacies and revisionists and neo-revisionists who have a more singular approach to the rebellion and its narrative. An interrogation of problematic frameworks that have been applied to Mexican history and art history includes: the Caudillo (or great man) based conception of history, the Corporativist model of state patronage, and a structuralist/post-modernist model. As part of his critique the author discerns major structural and institutional changes that occurred between 1910 and 1940 that were unique to Mexico, including the Constitution of 1917, separation of Church and State, a national literacy campaign, and agrarian land reform.

Integración, mestizaje y nacionalismo en el México revolucionario. Forjando Patria de Manuel Gamio: la diversidad subordinada al afán de unidad

This paper analyzes the integration program in Manuel Gamio's Forjando Patria as a national project arising in the historical context of revolutionary Mexico, where cultural diversity is conditional on the idea of unity. Firstly, we trace the relationship of the integration program with its history, the concepts of “mestizaje” and “mestizo” of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Secondly, we analyze the influence of some European models of nationality and socio-cultural change on Gamio's integrationism, in the context of socio-ethnic heterogeneity in Mexico during 1916. Finally, we highlight the links between the concepts of cultural diversity become visible, nation and nationalism in this author's work.

Playing with Fire: Woodrow Wilson, Self‐Determination, Democracy, and Revolution in Mexico

Playing with Fire: Woodrow Wilson, Self‐Determination, Democracy, and Revolution in Mexico

Rebel Mexico: student unrest and authoritarian political culture during the long sixties

Winner of the 2014 Mexican Book PrizeIn the middle of the twentieth century, a growing tide of activism in Mexico reached a level that could not be ignored, culminating with the 1968 movement. This book traces the rise, growth, and consequences of Mexico's student problem during the long sixties (1956-1971). Historian Jaime M. Pensado closely analyzes politics and youth culture during this period, as well as reactions to them on the part of competing actors. Examining unrest and youthful militancy in the forms of sponsored thuggery (porrismo), provocation, clientelism (charrismo estudiantil), and fun (relajo), Pensado offers insight into larger issues of state formation and resistance. He draws particular attention to the shifting notions of youth in Cold War Mexico and details the impact of the Cuban Revolution in Mexico's universities. In doing so, Pensado demonstrates the ways in which deviating authorities-inside and outside the government-responded differently to unrest, and provides a compelling explanation for the longevity of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional.

Women in Postrevolutionary Mexico: Politics, Culture, Identity, and the Body

Women in Postrevolutionary Mexico:Politics, Culture, Identity, and the Body Eileen Mary Ford (bio) Joanne Hershfield . Imagining la Chica Moderna: Women, Nation, and Visual Culture in Mexico, 1917-1936. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008. xiv + 200 pp.; ill. ISBN 978-0-8223-4238-0 Stephanie Mitchell and Patience A. Schell, eds. The Women's Revolution in Mexico, 1910-1953. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007. viii + 233 pp.; ill. ISBN 978-0-7425-3731-6 Jocelyn Olcott, Mary Kay Vaughan, and Gabriela Cano, eds.. Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006. x + 320 pp.; ill. ISBN 0-8223-3899-8 Stephanie J. Smith . Gender and the Mexican Revolution: Yucatán Women and the Realities of Patriarchy. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2009. xi + 257pp.; ill. ISBN 978-0-8078-3284-4 (cl); 978-0-8078-5953-7 (pb). In 2001, scholars convened at a Yale University conference titled "Las Olvidadas [the forgotten ones]: Gender and Women's History in Postrevolutionary Mexico." The conference spawned the majority of the essays in the two edited volumes under review, and since that time, several scholars have completed monograph-length studies based on their participation in the conference. Inspired by path-breaking work in the 1980s on early feminist congresses, suffrage movements, and soldaderas (female soldiers and camp followers during the Mexican Revolution), these historians have moved beyond the early project of recovering women's voices from the past and the narrower question of political rights.1 In the last decade or so, a proliferation of scholarship has not only configured women as historical subjects but also examined the relationships between women and gender, and how these categories relate to state formation, nationalism, modernity, identity, and popular culture. Historians of Mexico can now claim that these female subjects are no longer "forgotten," and that more recent histories employ the diverse methodological and thematic scopes explored at the 2001 conference. [End Page 221] Decades ago, groundbreaking work in women's history argued that the category "women" is heterogeneous and therefore differs tremendously with regard to class, race, sexual orientation, and age. Mexico's history of Spanish colonialism, a multiplicity of indigenous groups, and mestizaje (racial mixing) over the centuries complicate any discussion of women in Mexico. Moreover, men are not the only oppressors: as several authors show, women have also oppressed other women, in modern Mexico as elsewhere. While it is difficult to isolate the multiplicity of identity categories that interact with relationships of power, the scholars reviewed in this essay have taken up this task. The period of the Mexican Revolution is particularly meaningful for the study of women and gender because male revolutionary officials, eager to create a cohesive revolutionary rhetoric to promote nationalism, effectively silenced, marginalized, and stereotyped women's contributions to that narrative. Yet the very definitions of the revolution and its periodization are not easily defined. The 1910 Revolution, the first social revolution of the twentieth century, ravaged the nation's population, infrastructure, and economy, introducing a new political regime after ending thirty-four years of dictatorial rule. Historians have considered the military phase of the revolution (1910-1917) as distinct from the implementation of revolutionary reforms in subsequent decades (1920-1940). New research examines the fractured and fragile nature of revolutionary reforms, the emerging revolutionary state and the ruling party, with an eye to how women and gender fit into and altered this narrative. Similarly, women and gender historians have heeded the calls of other Mexican scholars to explore the regional nature of the revolution, demonstrating how regional histories of Mexico's revolutionary period have excluded women or failed to adequately include gender as a category of analysis. The anthology Sex in Revolution offers an engaging variety of essays on women's presence and power during and after the Mexican Revolution and the nature of gender roles and gender struggles during the first half of the twentieth century. Eleven essays are divided into four major topics: "Embodying Revolutionary Culture," "Reshaping the Domestic Sphere," "The Gendered Realm of Labor Organizing," and "Women and Revolutionary Politics." They are wide-ranging in topic and approach, including a transgendered colonel in...

La Santa Sede e la Cristiada (1926-1929)

The conflict between Church and State in revolutionary Mexico - particularly during the years of the Cristeros or Cristiada War, the dramatic conflict which saw the Mexican army pitched against several thousand Catholics from 1926 to 1929 - has been the subject of a great number of studies from the late 1950s on. Among this wide-ranging historiographical production, the leading role played by the Holy See in the events of the Mexican Church was initially reconstructed based on Mexican and American diplomatic sources. That has undoubtedly allowed us to shed light on some of the choices adopted in Rome in order to resolve the conflict, but, at the same time, has not allowed us to investigate the mechanisms at the basis of their adoption in-depth. The opening of the Vatican archives relating to the pontificate of Achilles Ratti (Pius IX, 1922-1939) today allows us to fill that gap and provide a more detailed reconstruction of this historical turning point.

Mexico's Revolution Then and Now ‐ by Cockcroft, James D.

Mexico's Revolution Then and Now ‐ by Cockcroft, James D.