page_title: Porfiriato
section_title: Labor
hierarchical_section_title: Porfiriato / Labor
caption_attribution_description: Collection: A. D. White Architectural Photographs, Cornell University Library Accession Number: 15/5/3090.00690 Title: Shoeing the Mules (Mexican Village Scene) Photographer: Abel Briquet (French, 1854-1896) Photograph date: ca. 1885-ca. 1895 Location: North and Central America: Mexico Materials: albumen print Image: 5 x 7 3/4 in.; 12.7 x 19.685 cm Provenance: Schuchardt Collection Persistent URI: &lt;a href="http://library24.library.cornell.edu/collections/adw/75873-10040279.html" rel="nofollow"&gt;http://library24.library.cornell.edu/collections/adw/75873-10040279.html&lt;/a&gt; There are no known U.S. copyright restrictions on this image. The digital file is owned by the Cornell University Library which is making it freely available with the request that, when possible, the Library be credited as its source.
context_page_description: The Porfiriato is a term given to the period that General José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori ruled Mexico as president in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, coined by Mexican historian Daniel Cosío Villegas. Díaz pursued a policy of "order and progress," inviting foreign investment to Mexico and maintaining social and political order, by force if necessary. There were tremendous changes economically, technologically, socially, and culturally during this period. As Díaz approached his 80th birthday and after having been continuously elected since 1884, he still had not put in place a plan for his succession. The fraudulent 1910 elections are usually seen as the end date of the Porfiriato. Violence broke out, Díaz was forced to resign and go into exile, and Mexico experienced a decade of regional civil war, the Mexican Revolution.
context_section_description: Craft artisan organizations already existed when Díaz came to power in 1876, as mutualist organizations or worker benevolent societies, and conducted strikes. The Gran Círculo de Obreros de México had nearly 30 branches in Mexico, calling for benefits beyond aiding of workers when they were sick, injured, or died.  In 1875, the Congreso Obrero sought broader goals, including education for adult workers, compulsory education for children, and representation of their goals to authorities.  The labor movement was not unified, including on whether to take political positions.  During the late 1870s and early 1880s, journeyman artisans could no longer successfully aspire to being master artisans owning their own shop. Their discontent led to agitation, but the formation of combative industrial labor organizations in the later nineteenth century can be seen as roots of the modern labor movement in Mexico.  After 1900, as Mexico’s economy was expanding dramatically with the infusion of foreign capital and the growth of various industries, organized industrial labor grew as well.  Workers resisted mechanization of such industries as textiles, where owners sought higher productivity per worker. Strikes in cotton textile mills took place, with the Río Blanco strike being the best known. Railway workers were the best unionized in the late Porfiriatio, with some 50% of them being unionized. There was not a single union, but rather split along particular tasks, such as engineers and firemen. More highly skilled jobs were dominated by U.S. workers, and Mexican laborers were paid less for the same work.  Mine workers also organized, with the Cananea Strike in 1906 the most widely known, since the mine was owned by U.S. interests and armed men from Arizona crossed into Mexico to suppress the strike. Although the Liberal Party of Mexico (PLM) advocated radical changes in favor of labor, most industrial workers were reformist not revolutionary. As the Díaz regime failed to respond to calls for reform, many workers saw regime change as desirable. With the expansion of the railway network, workers could seek work far away from their homes. In Mexico City, the development of a streetcar system, initially mule-drawn cars, and later electric ones, allowed for mass transportation. Street car companies employed a variety of workers to build the tracks, maintain the cars and mules, and serve as conductors.
  Urban women were able to obtain office employment in both government and private enterprises. Although women’s presence in the home rather than working outside the home was a marker of middle class status, in the late nineteenth century respectable women were increasingly were employed outside the home as office workers.  During the Liberal Reform in the mid-nineteenth century, women began entering the workforce as public school teachers and in charitable work. The Díaz regime opened opportunities for women as government office workers in the 1890s. The creation of a Mexican government bureaucracy largely staffed by women at the lower levels occurred in similar fashion to other nations as educated women dealt with the expansion of official paperwork and the introduction of new office technology of the typewriter, telephone, and telegraph.  Women also engaged in certain types of manual labor, including factory work in paper mills, cotton textiles, chocolate, shoes, and hats.
caption: Shoeing Mules (Mexican Village Scene). Photo by Abel Briquet. Although mechanization was taking hold during the Porfiriato, much labor was still performed by humans and animals.
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