Visions of the National Past in Argentine Secondary School Textbooks (1861–1912)
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Torleif R. Hamre Histories for a New Nation: Visions of the National Past in Argentine Secondary School Textbooks (1861–1912) Torleif R. Hamre Histories for a New Nation: Visions of the National Past in Argentine Secondary School Textbooks (1861–1912) Table of contents Preface and acknowledgments ................................................................................................... 4 I. Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 7 1. A brief presentation of the subject ..................................................................................... 8 2. Earlier research in the field .............................................................................................. 23 2.1 International research on history textbooks ............................................................... 23 2.2 Textbook studies in Latin America ............................................................................ 30 2.3 Textbook studies in Argentina ................................................................................... 32 3. The approach: Theoretical and methodological considerations ....................................... 46 4. The sources ....................................................................................................................... 57 5. Nineteenth Century Argentina: A summary of the historical background ....................... 61 Colonial antecedents: The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata .......................................... 61 1816-1829: Unitarians and federalists in the disunited River Plate provinces ................ 63 1829-1852: Rosas and the Argentine Confederation ....................................................... 66 1852-1880: “National Organization” – the foundation of a nation-state ......................... 69 II 1861-1880 ............................................................................................................................. 72 6. The genesis of Argentine history as a school subject ....................................................... 73 6.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 73 6.2 The development of the Argentine secondary school until 1880 - a brief outline ..... 73 6.3 Argentine history as a secondary school subject before 1880 ................................... 78 7. Which nation? History textbooks in the Plata region before 1861 ................................. 82 8. Luis L. Domínguez and the textbook monument of independence .................................. 85 9. The historical approach of Liberal Catholicism: The lectures of José Manuel Estrada .. 95 10. Towards a new era: Bright future, bright past in the Lecciones by Lucio V. López ... 115 1861–1880: Concluding remarks ....................................................................................... 121 III. 1880–1912 ........................................................................................................................ 123 11. National history under the Conservative order (1880–1912): Educational policies, the school subject and Argentine history writing ..................................................................... 124 11.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 124 11.2 Educational expansion and educational policies .................................................... 128 11.3 The new key role of national history in the schools ............................................... 141 2 11.4 The development of national history writing ......................................................... 153 11.5 Concluding remarks ............................................................................................... 162 12. Domínguez replaced: Fregeiro’s textbooks .................................................................. 164 13. The perspective of the Littoral: Benigno T. Martínez .................................................. 185 14. The passionate storyteller: Vicente Fidel López’s manual .......................................... 192 15. The success story historians loved to hate: the “Grossos” ........................................... 208 16. Vicente Gambón: an ecclesiastical perspective on Argentine history ......................... 226 17. Levene’s Lecciones: the “New School” history popularized ....................................... 238 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................ 278 Sources ................................................................................................................................... 289 A. Unpublished sources ...................................................................................................... 289 B. Published sources: textbooks and sources for educational history ................................ 289 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 292 3 Preface and acknowledgments The present PhD thesis has a long history. Way too long: It started with a phone call from the University of Bergen in 1993, encouraging me to elaborate a project on Latin American history textbooks. A few years earlier, I had written a MA thesis on Spanish textbooks. Now, twenty years later, the mission is accomplished, in the form of a study of Argentine history texts for the secondary school through the first half century’s development of the genre. I have only myself to blame for the unreasonable delay of a dissertation that should have been handed in many years ago. For personal and professional reasons, this was not possible. On the credit side, the time and efforts invested in the project, whose results are condensed on the following pages, have rendered a most rewarding experience, personally and professionally. For one thing, I got to know Argentina, a great country in every way. In the historical period concerned here, it was situated at the crossroads of complex influences, in the midst of a process of dynamic changes on many levels. The questions that arose when I was trying to come to grips with that reality also felt relevant faced with more recent historical developments in many parts of the world, academically and politically. When I started out in the 1990s, there was a renewed interest in topics regarding nations, nationalism and national identity. In a broader sense, identity issues have continued to attract an enormous interest, including, as a partial aspect, the role of historical cultures and the usages of history in the formation of identities. In the general public debates, such topics are often connected to concerns about immigration and integration in our pluralist societies in an age of globalization. Preoccupations of a similar kind were also very much present in Argentina a hundred years ago, with debates reflecting worries about an impending disintegration of the national community. In effect, many things would indeed go wrong in Argentina in the years that followed, but in other ways and for different reasons than those put forward by the early twentieth century nationalists. For good and for bad, to me this historical experience might provide a healthy lesson when met with present-day dystopian visions of the conflictive developments of our European societies. However, this far-reaching perspective, though adding nerve to my own commitment, is by no means integrated into the present work, which on the whole has been kept to the historiographical course initially marked out when I began, as will be explained in the introductory chapter. 4 Most of the research ground work was done, and the better part of a first draft of the dissertation was written, in the years 1994–1998, when I was a scholar at the University of Oslo. This also included three research travels to Argentina. In the following years, my efforts to complete the study where irregular due to other pressing tasks. However, I have never quite lost touch with the project and have improved the opportunities offered to resume the work. Hopefully, the fruit is mature, rather than overripe. Naturally, given the long duration of the project, I owe thanks to a large number of people who contributed in one way or another along the way. Unfortunately, it is impossible here to mention each and every one to whom I am indebted, whose comments and suggestions inspired and led me on. I am truly grateful to all, and apologize for the omissions. First, I wish to thank Birger Angvik, Miguel Angel Quesada Pacheco and Jon Askeland from what is now the Department of Foreign Languages at the University of Bergen for suggesting the idea to me and encouraging me to formulate the initial project. A four-year scholarship from the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Oslo provided the essential financial support, while the Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History of the same faculty offered a work-place as well as a stimulating academic environment. I am grateful for the PhD (at that time, the corresponding “Dr.Art”) training programme and the courses and seminars organized by coordinators Leif Ahnström and Knut Kjeldstadli on both a faculty and a department level. All the mutual readings, commentaries and discussions with fellow PhD students, with contributions