CHAPTER 1 WORKING-CLASS HEROES

Abstract

Forging the Ties That BindAs we saw in the introduction, most early twentieth-century Mexico City workers subscribed to a shifting constellation of interrelated ideas, attitudes, and notions that historians have labeled "pop u lar liberalism." Although derived from mainstream liberalism with its emphasis on citizenship-civic responsibilities, po liti cal rights, respect for the rule of law, respect for the dignity of the individual-popular liberalism grounded that citizenship, not in the newly emergent middle classes (often allied in Mexico as elsewhere with traditional elites), but in the historical resentments, patriotic sentiments, and productive toil of marginalized working-class men (and to a much lesser extent women).Mexico City's thriving satiric penny press for workers played a key role in establishing pop u lar liberalism as an oppositional discourse committed to challenging the exploitation, corruption, cronyism, and authoritarian tactics of the Porfirian regime. 1 These are fundamental insights.Nevertheless, historians have only just begun to scratch the surface of what social theorist Raymond Williams calls the "structures of feeling"-"meanings and values as they are actively lived and felt"-that underlay pop u lar liberalism and the emerging class consciousness of Mexico City workers. 2 This chapter thus examines the concerted efforts of satiric penny press editors and contributors