ABSTRACT
Transportation and communication have posed major challenges throughout Latin American history. The European version of the conquest of America usually alludes to European man conquering both the natural environment and the human societies that flourished in the Americas. With the development of the refrigerated steamship in 1876, frozen/fresh beef, rather than salted beef, could be shipped to Europe, which helped expand commerce between Buenos Aires and the northern industrial cities of Great Britain. Steam-powered riverboats, the telegraph, and barbed wire all helped “tame” the Argentine pampas, and supported the export economy in Argentina and elsewhere in Latin America. Electrification of cities and the development of streetcars in the primary cities of Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Bogota were important projects in the modernization of Latin America. Modernization in terms of transportation and communication only affected a small number of people in the cities who were directly connected to the export economy.
