Porfirian Society in the early 20th Century

I think part of the more interesting part of our reading this week (the last portion of Chapter 12) was the outlining of the different aspects of society, especially during the Porfirian era. This era lasted from 1876 until 1911 when Porfirio Diaz took the presidency. The main part I’ll be focusing on is his decent from 1901 until 1911. During this time, the gap between the upper elite and the rest of the population, which included the Middle Class and the Working Class, was gallingly apparent. Only about 1% of the population formed the upper class elites while the middle class formed only about 8%, leaving 92% of the population in the poor, underpaid or unemployed range (Russell, 239). The mass poverty that took place amongst the working class was attributed to many things, but mostly the natural development of the country was to blame. Those who were already wealthy became even more so along with this trend. America went through much the same thing during the Industrial Revolution.

The Elites in Díaz’s reign were heavily rewarded for their support of him and their “new wealth” surpassed that of the “poor rich” or those who’d made much of their wealth prior to Díaz’s presidency. These people were able to accumulate even more wealth due to the lands previously owned by the church and the indigenous populations now being available for sale at extremely low prices. Monopolizing these lands allowed the wealthy to control much of the Mexican economy, including the wages they paid their workers. The urban upper classes were also held to a higher standard than the rest, especially the women. While it may not have been ideal to have a poor woman working outside the home, it was especially frowned upon to have and elite woman working outside the home on anything other than social and charitable work.

Low wages in the early 20^th century were a huge problem for the working class. The cost of living was rising but wages weren’t. The urban areas were most affected by this unbalance and in these areas, diseases spread so rapidly it caused on newspaper to refer to them as “centers of sickness and death” (Russel, 243). Those leading the labor force tried desperately to get the government to step in and help regulate the large corporations, but the government took a more hands off approach, preferring to allow the private enterprises to govern themselves freely. Of course, this didn’t sit well with the workers and many formed unions, though they faced many challenges of their own. Lack of funding and low numbers due to anxiety caused many to be wary of any union action such as strikes. Often times, those who supported the large corporations over the workers who would undermine their efforts would infiltrate the unions. Furthermore, those who were compliant with the government received subsidies and rewards.

There was another large social gap in Mexico at the turn of the century; the gap between women and men. Women were denied the right to vote and seen as mentally and physically inferior to their male counterparts. While women were allowed to work in some fields, any work they did was heavily regulated and policed for fear they would mess something up or be a distraction to the other men who worked along side them. There was also a greater danger for women in the work place to be subjected to sexual harassments and abuses and to receive little pay for long hours. For the most part, the government did it’s best to enforce the idea that the woman should be in the home most if not all the time. Women protested this idea by saying that they couldn’t afford to have only one income within the family.

I find it interesting that you could pretty much take any person’s situation in Mexico and find an identical one in the United States. There seems to be this stigma associated with the Mexican population that they are job-stealing immigrants who have no place in our country. But if you really look at who these people were and are and what kind of things they go through, it’s incredibly easy to see the likeness they have with just about every other nation in the world. They faced many of the same hardships the United States would face in regards to the Industrial Revolution, the role of women, and its attempts at balancing it all.