Workers or Citizens: Democracy and Identity in Rosario, Argentina (1912-1930)

In a provocative study based on extensive original research, Karush reinterprets Argentina's first experiment with electoral democracy. By the early twentieth century, massive immigration and rapid economic growth had generated severe class conflict. In 1912, the nation's elite attempted to defuse this conflict by enacting electoral reforms designed to incorporate the working-class children of immigrants into the body politic. This book reconstructs the ensuing struggles over national identity and political representation as they played out in Rosario, then the country's second largest city.