Elizabeth Anne Kuznesof

Household Composition and Headship as Related to Changes in Mode of Production: São Paulo 1765 to 1836

The relationship of household and family organization to changes in the larger economy (e.g., commercialization, industrialization) has long fascinated and baffled scholars. Data that specifically link the household and/or family unit to economic change have proved elusive, and most studies do little more than note temporal crosscultural coincidences of demographic and residential characteristics with those of economic development. The means by which the household interacted with the economy, what the patterns of interaction were and how they were determined in a given time and place are significant questions which are seldom addressed. Even less accessible are the changes in the dynamics of household organization in conjunction with economic development in terms of informal economic and social exchanges and household and family formation.

Who were the families of “natural” children in nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro, Brazil?: A comparison of baptismal and census records

The article analyzes the census records for Sao Cristovao in 1870 to determine the proportions of single mothers in the population and whether they were living in female-headed households, as companheiras in male-headed households (in consensual union), or as agregadas or dependent members of a household headed by someone else, who was not the sexual partner of the single mother. The socio-economic and racial characteristics of the single mothers are also compared to each other and to the married population. The data suggest that approximately one-third of single Brazilian mothers and their children were living in informal two-parent relationships. These women were not substantially different from the two-thirds of single mothers who were living either as female heads of households or as dependents in other households, in terms of race, age, or occupation. Women who were female heads of households were somewhat older than the average single mother in a consensual union, and the women living in dependent s...

The construction of gender in colonial Latin America

When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality and Power in New Mexico, 1500–1846. By RAMON GUTIERREZ. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991. Pp. xxx + 424. Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America. Edited by ASUNCION LAVRIN. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989. Pp. v + 349. Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville. By MARY ELIZABETH PERRY. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. Pp. 206. To Love, Honor and Obey in Colonial Mexico: Conflicts Over Marriage Choice, 1574–1821. By PATRICIA SEED. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988. Pp. 322 Historia e Sexualidade no Brasil. Edited by RONALDO VAINFAS. Rio de Janeiro: Edicoes Graal Ltda., 1986. Pp. 212.

Disciplinary Conquest: U.S. Scholars in South America, 1900–1945 by Ricardo D. Salvatore (review)

that popular classes participated in elite discourses and policies. Beginning in 1786, Mexican authorities began to deport convicted vagrants and rejected family members as part of their annual levies to support the far-flung defenses of the Spanish forces in the Philippines. For the 300 men who suffered this fate, their lot only worsened when they arrived at their destination, for Spanish authorities in Manila only accused them of bringing their social troubles with them to Asia. The same accusations of gambling, idleness, vagrancy, and crime that had beset them in Mexico now cast them as threats to the delicate balance of power in the archipelago.

Amazons, Wives, Nuns & Witches: Women and the Catholic Church in Colonial Brazil: 1500–1822 by Carole A. Myscofski (review)

At this writing, Toledo is facing a formal congressional indictment for money laundering stemming from shoddy real estate acquisitions in the amount of

The Practice of Politics in Postcolonial Brazil: Porto Alegre, 1845-1895 (review)

5 million. Despite the indictment, or perhaps because of it, Toledo has announced his intention to run for reelection in 2016. If a criticism can be made of the book, it is that it pays little attention to Toledo’s dealings with his congressional party and sheds little light on Toledo’s inner core of advisors, other than his influential first lady. Overall, the book provides a serious and fair assessment of a presidency that raised many hopes but disappointed as much as it pleased.

Containing the Poor: The Mexico City Poor House, 1774-1871 (review)

Roger Kittlesons book makes an important original contribution to Latin American and Brazilian history, in both its presentation of new material and its perspective. Nineteenth-century political and economic history continues to be the great uncharted territory of Latin American and Brazilian studies. In this insightful regionally based work, Kittleson analyzes political change and continuity in the relatively small and sparsely settled, ranching economy of Porto Alegre. He argues that in this context the transition from liberal to scientific or positivist politics in the late nineteenth century effectively restructured both politics and society, along with ideologies of national identity. While both liberalism and positivism were antidemocratic, Kittleson contends that the transition signified a profound cultural and political shift: it created a political opportunity for an incipient incorporation of plebeians into the formal political realm. This book walks the lines between cultural history, social, history, and institutional history and makes important contributions to each. It will definitely make an important impact on the literature of Brazilian and Latin American history.

Ethnic and gender influences on “Spanish” Creole society in colonial Spanish America∗

client labor relations, and how significant parts of the industrial working class saw the revolution mostly as a destructive threat. The book also provides a valuable discussion of the role of early state intervention in labor conflicts; as soon as the Constitutionalists took power, strong reformist currents came into action in Puebla but these were later neutralized by the removal of Governor Francisco Coss when he was sent to fight in the North. Still, the post-revolutionary period provided a better climate for workers, but also opened the working class to cooptation by the state. These conclusions are a bit closer to the traditional literature on Mexican working class history which basically traces the institutionalized PRIista cooptation of the labor movement to the red brigades and the Constitutionalist-labor pacts of 1915. In the books view, the state is the ultimate winner; but workers opened new spaces for working class participation in institutional formation short of independent working class organizations because most strategies were based on conciliation and collaboration.