Reading Spaces: Nation and Popular Learning in Nineteenth-Century Lima Gracia G
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Florida International University FIU Digital Commons FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School 11-15-2017 Reading Spaces: Nation and Popular Learning in Nineteenth-Century Lima Gracia G. Solis Florida International University College of Law, [email protected] DOI: 10.25148/etd.FIDC004042 Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Solis, Gracia G., "Reading Spaces: Nation and Popular Learning in Nineteenth-Century Lima" (2017). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3521. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/3521 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the University Graduate School at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Miami, Florida READING SPACES: NATION AND POPULAR LEARNING IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY LIMA A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in HISTORY by Gracia Solis 2017 To: Dean John F. Stack, Jr. Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs This dissertation, written by Gracia Solis, and entitled Reading Spaces: Nation and Popular Learning in Nineteenth-Century Lima, having been approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment. We have read this dissertation and recommend that it be approved. ______________________________________ Leonardo Ferreira _________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________ Aurora Morcillo ______________________________________ ______________________________________ Bianca Premo, Co-Major Professor ______________________________________ ______________________________________ Victor Uribe-Uran, Co-Major Professor Date of Defense: November 15, 2017 The dissertation of Gracia Solis is approved. _______________________________________ Dean John F. Stack, Jr. Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs _______________________________________ Andrés G. Gil Vice President for Research and Economic Development and Dean of the University Graduate School Florida International University, 2017 ii © Copyright 2017 by Gracia Solis All rights reserved. iii DEDICATION I dedicate this dissertation to my parents, Maria Peña Chavez and Carlos Solis, whose unwavering belief in education continues to inspire me. iv ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION READING SPACES: NATION AND POPULAR LEARNING IN NINETEENTH- CENTURY LIMA by Gracia Solis Florida International University, 2017 Miami, Florida Professor Bianca Premo, Co-Major Professor Professor Victor Uribe, Co-Major Professor My dissertation examined the transformation of reading practices and ideas about the functions of alphabetic literacy in nineteenth-century Lima. Scholars of Latin America have attributed improvements in literacy rates to the rise of the Teaching State in the twentieth century; however, as I showed, literacy and reading culture spread decades earlier in the Peruvian capital, at a time when the state lacked the stability and resources to develop a public system of education. “Reading Spaces” argued that during the second half of the nineteenth century, private educational enterprise from a diverse group of booksellers, writers, and educators established key institutions of the modern Teaching State, including a national textbook industry as well as pedagogical newspapers, associations, and conferences. They did so in a process that promoted new pedagogical methods and helped spread alphabetic literacy and reading practices. Developments in the disciplines of book history, the cultural history of education, and the history of reading informed my methodological approach to a variety of previously unexamined sources including books, textbooks, pedagogical periodicals, as v well as bookstore organ newspapers and catalogues. Both the intellectual content and paratext of published sources provided a wealth of information regarding the circulation of the texts, their reception among state authorities and influential members of Lima’s society, and the relationship of book and textbook authors to their publishers and readers. My dissertation revealed that textbook standardization and the proliferation of pedagogical newspapers were processes firmly rooted in the development of Peru’s private educational enterprise, publishing industry and educational legislation of the nineteenth century. These processes expanded Lima’s public sphere, where booksellers, editors, writers, and teachers debated modern pedagogies and promoted broad engagement in educational matters. They conducted pedagogical conferences, intellectual competitions, national expositions and reorganized civic festivities. The presence of a pedagogical public sphere, which directed the course of institutions of the modern nation state in Peru, encourages a reassessment of our traditional narratives of the relationship between education and nation in Latin America and beyond. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1 CHAPTER I. Alphabetic Literacy and Reading Culture from Colonial to Early Republican Lima ................................................................................................................25 CHAPTER II. For Erudition Only: Lima’s Public Library, 1821-1912 ............................66 CHAPTER III. Beyond European Literature: Bookstores and the National Textbook and Book Industry, 1850-1900 ........................................................................................110 CHAPTER IV. Legitimizing Text and Method in Lima’s Public Sphere of Pedagogical Society .........................................................................................................156 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................198 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................203 VITA ................................................................................................................................217 vii LIST OF TABLES TABLE PAGE 1. Types of Newspapers Published in Lima, 1821-1858………………………………...52 2. Ackermann’s Catechisms, 1824-1828..……………………………………………….56 3. Library Users at the National Library and Books Borrowed from 1884 to 1911……102 4. Books Borrowed by Subject at Lima’s National Library in 1893…………………...107 5. Books Borrowed by Subject at Lima’s National Library in 1894…………………...108 6. Lima’s Bookstores in 1860…………………………………………………………..116 7. Political Catechisms and Textbooks Published during the Nineteenth Century……..135 8. History Books Published during the Nineteenth Century……………………………139 9. Geography Books Published during the Nineteenth Century….…………………….142 10. Manuals Sold at the Bookstore of Benito Gil in 1886……………………............... viii LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE PAGE 1. Libro de Lectura…………………………………………………………………….132 2. Nuevo Manual de la Cocina Peruana por un Limeño Mazamorrero………………..154 3. Palacio de Bellas Artes en la Exposición de Filadelfia …………………………….167 4. Palacio de Maquinaria en la Exposición de Filadelfia……………………………...168 5. Colegio Nacional de Señoritas……………………………………………………...170 ix INTRODUCTION With novels and storybooks, a very different thing happens; young people and children devour these books by the thousands. —Joaquín Capelo, Sociología de Lima, 1902 No one, no matter how poor, stops short of buying or borrowing a book. Thus, against the prevailing positivist view, it is evident that people in Lima read. —Jorge Miota, El Comercio (Lima), 1904. Only a minority of Lima’s residents had the ability to read printed or handwritten text during the period of Spanish colonial rule.1 The remarks of Peruvian sociologist Joaquín Capelo and writer Joaquín Miota point to the ubiquity of reading practices in Lima less than a century after Peru gained political independence from Spain. A 1908 census later confirmed that approximately 80 percent of the population in the Peruvian capital could read.2 This dissertation explores the implications of this literacy revolution, and particularly argues that during the second half of the nineteenth century, private educational enterprise from a diverse group of booksellers, writers, and educators established key institutions of the modern Estado Docente or “Teaching State,” including a national textbook industry as well as pedagogical newspapers, associations, and 1 See Pablo Macera, “Noticias sobre la enseñanza elemental en el Perú durante el coloniaje,” in Trabajos de historia, vol. II (Lima: Instituto Nacional de Cultura, 1977), 258 and Cristóbal Aljovín de Losada, Caudillos y constituciones (Perú, 1821-1845 (Lima: Instituto Riva-Agüero, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2000). Both works and figures are discussed in José Ragas, “Leer, escribir, votar. Literacidad y cultura política en el Perú (1810-1900),” Histórica 31 (2007): 107-134.),” 115. 2 Censo de la provincia de Lima (Lima: Impr. De “La Opinión Nacional, 1915), 102. 1 conferences.3 They did so in a process that promoted new pedagogical methods and helped spread alphabetic literacy and reading practices. Scholars of Latin America have generally attributed improvements in literacy rates to the