Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
packing, wine pressing, and sugar refining had become the dynamic
industries of the era. While native and immigrant entrepreneurs domi-
nated the flour and wine businesses, much of the sugar refining and the
meatpacking industries remained under the control of foreign manag-
ers. These foreigners had little interest in spreading their technologies
to other domestic industries.
Argentina's secondary industries grew impressively as the national
economy became integrated. Yet these, too, confronted obstacles.
Argentina's electrical generators, steam engines, and railroad locomo-
tives ran on imported coal and coke. Lacking both coal and iron ore
deposits, Argentina had to import much of the raw materials for sec-
ondary industry. In fact, the iron and steel manufacturers depended on
foreign sources for nearly 80 percent of their raw materials.
World War I provided both a stimulus and an obstacle for
Argentina's economic boom. Most of its trade partners went to war
in Europe and ceased buying Argentine products. Similarly, Great
Britain and France converted their industries to wartime production,
making few items that Argentine consumers customarily purchased.
Consumer prices shot up. The middle class and workers faced the
stress of rising unemployment at a moment of rising cost of living,
and 1917 saw sharp labor strikes and class conflict. Nonetheless,
domestic manufacturers of consumer items expanded production of
various items traditionally imported. Argentines bought more locally-
produced textiles and leather goods. Small mechanical shops began
to turn out the machinery and glasswares that previously had come
from foreign sources.
The Landed and the Landless
Argentine elite families had been able to preserve their socioeconomic
status through three generations. The Spanish merchant elite of the
viceregal era had provided the capital for their sons and daughters to
expand into the ranching business after independence from Spain. By
the 1880s, the great grandchildren of colonial merchants were diver-
sifying their
estancia
-based portfolios with investments in urban real
estate, railway and bank stocks, and joint stock companies. These first
families had consistently intermarried during the entire previous cen-
tury in order to remain culturally and racially European.
The Argentine elite was open to an extent to infusions of non-
Spanish Europeans: The economic expansion of the 19th century
