ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the statistics on population growth and housing conditions that depict the daily struggle of working-class tenants in the period between 1870 and 1930 and show how they responded actively to these problems. Legislation to reform the political process and laws to alleviate some of the worst housing problems encountered by the working class in Buenos Aires stemmed in part from the rivalries between the Radicals and these elites. The chapter shows how an active working class, whose demands had been articulated through labor unions, newspapers, and tenant associations, found new, if temporary, allies among contending political parties seeking power. The liberal state in Argentina faced serious challenges in the aftermath of World War I. Political reforms and a changing labor movement altered the relationship between the working class and the government; economic and social changes produced a postwar crisis; and various groups looked to the state to act in the emergency.