Dulcinea in the Factory

Myths, Morals, Men, and Women in Colombia’s Industrial Experiment, 1905–1960

Nonfiction, History, Americas, South America, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science, Politics, Labour & Industrial Relations, Social Science
Cover of the book Dulcinea in the Factory by Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Andrew Gordon, Daniel James, Alexander Keyssar, Duke University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Andrew Gordon, Daniel James, Alexander Keyssar ISBN: 9780822380269
Publisher: Duke University Press Publication: March 17, 2000
Imprint: Duke University Press Books Language: English
Author: Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Andrew Gordon, Daniel James, Alexander Keyssar
ISBN: 9780822380269
Publisher: Duke University Press
Publication: March 17, 2000
Imprint: Duke University Press Books
Language: English

Before it became the center of Latin American drug trafficking, the Colombian city of Medellín was famous as a success story of industrialization, a place where protectionist tariffs had created a “capitalist paradise.” By the 1960s, the city’s textile industrialists were presenting themselves as the architects of a social stability that rested on Catholic piety and strict sexual norms. Dulcinea in the Factory explores the boundaries of this paternalistic order by investigating workers’ strategies of conformity and resistance and by tracing the disciplinary practices of managers during the period from the turn of the century to a massive reorganization of the mills in the late 1950s.

Ann Farnsworth-Alvear’s analyses of archived personnel records, internal factory correspondence, printed regulations, and company magazines are combined with illuminating interviews with retired workers to allow a detailed reconstruction of the world behind the mill gate. In a place where the distinction between virgins and nonvirgins organized the labor market for women, the distance between chaste and unchaste behavior underlay a moral code that shaped working women’s self-perceptions. Farnsworth-Alvear challenges the reader to understand gender not as an opposition between female and male but rather as a normative field, marked by “proper” and “improper” ways of being female or male. Disputing the idea that the shift in the mills’ workforce over several decades from mainly women to almost exclusively men was based solely on economic factors, the author shows how gender and class, as social practices, converged to shape industrial development itself.

Innovative in its creative employment of subtle and complex material, Dulcinea in the Factory addresses long-standing debates within labor history about proletarianization and work culture. This book’s focus on Colombia will make it valuable to Latin Americanists, but it will also appeal to a wide readership beyond Latin American and labor studies, including historians and sociologists, as well as students of women’s studies, social movements, and anthropology.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Before it became the center of Latin American drug trafficking, the Colombian city of Medellín was famous as a success story of industrialization, a place where protectionist tariffs had created a “capitalist paradise.” By the 1960s, the city’s textile industrialists were presenting themselves as the architects of a social stability that rested on Catholic piety and strict sexual norms. Dulcinea in the Factory explores the boundaries of this paternalistic order by investigating workers’ strategies of conformity and resistance and by tracing the disciplinary practices of managers during the period from the turn of the century to a massive reorganization of the mills in the late 1950s.

Ann Farnsworth-Alvear’s analyses of archived personnel records, internal factory correspondence, printed regulations, and company magazines are combined with illuminating interviews with retired workers to allow a detailed reconstruction of the world behind the mill gate. In a place where the distinction between virgins and nonvirgins organized the labor market for women, the distance between chaste and unchaste behavior underlay a moral code that shaped working women’s self-perceptions. Farnsworth-Alvear challenges the reader to understand gender not as an opposition between female and male but rather as a normative field, marked by “proper” and “improper” ways of being female or male. Disputing the idea that the shift in the mills’ workforce over several decades from mainly women to almost exclusively men was based solely on economic factors, the author shows how gender and class, as social practices, converged to shape industrial development itself.

Innovative in its creative employment of subtle and complex material, Dulcinea in the Factory addresses long-standing debates within labor history about proletarianization and work culture. This book’s focus on Colombia will make it valuable to Latin Americanists, but it will also appeal to a wide readership beyond Latin American and labor studies, including historians and sociologists, as well as students of women’s studies, social movements, and anthropology.

More books from Duke University Press

Cover of the book Art from a Fractured Past by Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Andrew Gordon, Daniel James, Alexander Keyssar
Cover of the book Authoring Autism by Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Andrew Gordon, Daniel James, Alexander Keyssar
Cover of the book Songs of Life and Hope/Cantos de vida y esperanza by Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Andrew Gordon, Daniel James, Alexander Keyssar
Cover of the book The Enduring Legacy by Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Andrew Gordon, Daniel James, Alexander Keyssar
Cover of the book Women on the Verge by Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Andrew Gordon, Daniel James, Alexander Keyssar
Cover of the book Latent Destinies by Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Andrew Gordon, Daniel James, Alexander Keyssar
Cover of the book Cities Surround The Countryside by Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Andrew Gordon, Daniel James, Alexander Keyssar
Cover of the book Women, State, and Party in Eastern Europe by Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Andrew Gordon, Daniel James, Alexander Keyssar
Cover of the book Sovereignty in Ruins by Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Andrew Gordon, Daniel James, Alexander Keyssar
Cover of the book Birth of an Industry by Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Andrew Gordon, Daniel James, Alexander Keyssar
Cover of the book A Century of Violence in a Red City by Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Andrew Gordon, Daniel James, Alexander Keyssar
Cover of the book Disintegrating the Musical by Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Andrew Gordon, Daniel James, Alexander Keyssar
Cover of the book Becoming Undone by Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Andrew Gordon, Daniel James, Alexander Keyssar
Cover of the book The Cultural Life of Intellectual Properties by Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Andrew Gordon, Daniel James, Alexander Keyssar
Cover of the book Other Planes of There by Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Andrew Gordon, Daniel James, Alexander Keyssar
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy