This excellent study explores the interrelationships between the Mexican industrial revolution and social revolution from 1880 to 1920 in two novel ways. It combines business and labor history to further our understanding of the struggles between capital and labor. Additionally, it uses hitherto unexplored company archives to examine one firm, the Compañía Industrial Veracruzana SA (CIVSA), and one region, the Orizaba Valley, in order to address broader socioeconomic questions concerning the long-term impact of industrialization and social revolution on Mexico's textile industry and its labor force.
After providing a sweeping overview of Mexico's textile manufacturing from colonial times to the eve of the 1910 revolution within the context of a developing nation on the periphery, the book outlines how the Porfirian state created the most propitious economic and fiscal environment for French immigrants to transform their family-operated department store chains into two joint stock conglomerates, CIVSA and the Compañía Industrial...
