Trading with Power: Mexico City's Markets, 1867-1958

Abstract

This dissertation traces the history of Mexico City’s municipal markets from a patchwork of sites of customary trade dating from the colonial era to a network of state-controlled modernist halls in the 1950s. It shows how, as small-scale vendors of tomatoes, straw hats, charcoal and all manner of every-day necessities plied their trade and fought to protect their livelihoods, their interactions with the government and other social groups and classes transformed the city’s markets and shaped the contours of popular politics in modern Mexico. More broadly, it uncovers vendors’ role in the dual process of economic development and state formation.