Radio in Revolution: Wireless Technology and State Power in Mexico, 1897-1938
288
Radio in Revolution: Wireless Technology and State Power in Mexico, 1897-1938
288Paperback(Reprint)
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Overview
Radio in Revolution, an innovative study of early radio technologies and the Mexican Revolution, examines the foundational relationship between electronic wireless technologies, single-party rule, and authoritarian practices in Mexican media. J. Justin Castro bridges the Porfiriato and the Mexican Revolution, discussing the technological continuities and change that set the stage for Lázaro Cárdenas's famous radio decree calling for the expropriation of foreign oil companies.
Not only did the nascent development of radio technology represent a major component in government plans for nation and state building, its interplay with state power in Mexico also transformed it into a crucial component of public communication services, national cohesion, military operations, and intelligence gathering. Castro argues that the revolution had far-reaching ramifications for the development of radio and politics in Mexico and reveals how continued security concerns prompted the revolutionary victors to view radio as a threat even while they embraced it as an essential component of maintaining control.
J. Justin Castro is an assistant professor of history at Arkansas State University.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780803286788 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Nebraska |
| Publication date: | 07/01/2016 |
| Series: | The Mexican Experience |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Radio in Revolution
Wireless Technology and State Power in Mexico, 1897â"1938
By J. Justin Castro
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS
Copyright © 2016 Board of Regents of the University of NebraskaAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8032-8678-8
CHAPTER 1
Porfirian Radio, Imperial Designs, and the Mexican Nation
The effective government of large areas depends to a very important extent on the efficiency of communications.
Harold Innis, Empire and Communications
Staring out over the gulf waters off the coast of Veracruz, young telegrapher Alejandro Gutiérrez dreamed of accomplishing great things. It was 1902 and the government had selected him to head experiments with German radiotelegraphy equipment. Gutiérrez had once again successfully signaled a fellow radio operator on the steamship Melchor Ocampo, a coast guard vessel. He achieved a clear reception at distances of seventy miles "under bad and good atmospheric conditions." Although deservedly proud of his accomplishment, Gutiérrez and other communications officials had reached a plateau in their experiments, which had been under way for two years. He could not break the seventy-mile mark. Undaunted, he aspired to connect "Veracruz, Frontera, Progreso, Campeche, Tampico, and Túxpan, for the service of the Public Administration." He believed in the future of the technology, in its ability to expand trade, increase the reach of government, and to facilitate Mexico's rise into the membership of modern nations.
European practices especially influenced Mexican officials. They desired acceptance among the leaders of more powerful nation-states and the power they possessed. Europe's scientists and engineers developed amazing machines that lined the pockets of businessmen and rulers with wealth extracted from far-flung colonies and rising nations like Mexico. Radio was one of the newest innovations. The navies and armies of Britain, Italy, Germany, France, and Belgium raced to incorporate the technology. Political and military agents worked diligently to connect offshore islands and remote resources to metropolitan centers. In the process, they defined world protocol. Mexican officials had similar ambitions, albeit more for gaining control over their own politically defined territory and proving they were worthy of sitting at the international policy table.
The administration of President Porfirio Díaz had made progress toward its goals in establishing a radio network. It had just presided over the groundbreaking of the first public radio stations, one on each side of the Gulf of California. Four years later, in 1906, Mexican representatives participated in an important international conference on wireless technology in Berlin, Germany, aligning with the host country against the British Empire. Germany provided a better deal on radio transmitters and receivers, and unlike their British competitor, allowed Mexicans to operate their own radio systems in addition to owning the equipment. In exchange, Díaz's envoys provided loyalty in diplomatic debates over communication networks. Gutiérrez, the telegrapher with a very personal interest in radio, was a part of something much bigger than his goal of beating the seventy-mile-transmission mark, or even connecting Mexico's gulf ports. He was at the center of a grand struggle between global empires and a Mexican government attempting to use these imperial conflicts for its own nationalist endeavors.
In power since 1876, excepting a four-year stint from 1880 to 1884, Díaz brought relative stability, economic growth, and modernization to much of urban Mexico. Leaders of industrialized empires applauded him for his firm (and sometimes ruthless) rule, especially his protection of foreign investments. Although described by later anti-Porfirista historians as a sellout to foreigners, the Díaz administration had nationalist ambitions. Díaz's advisers understood that technological development was crucial to centralizing power and that the only way to build vast miles of railroads, telegraph lines, and waterworks was to invite in outside specialists and capitalists. Although foreigners often made the greatest profits, the Díaz administration argued that the infrastructural improvements would allow for the growth of domestic capital and consumerism. Meanwhile, the government built new professional colleges, including the National School for Engineers and the National Agrarian and Veterinary School, to train a new generation of Mexican professionals to wean the country from outside influences. The Díaz administration believed it was through infrastructural development and education that a stronger national culture would be born via greater economic and personal exchange, and by force, too, if necessary.
Despite some success in educating Mexican specialists and building a stronger domestic economy, aggressive U.S. economic and military actions created anxiety within the Díaz government by the end of the 1890s. U.S. influence had grown too strong. The Spanish-American War (1898) clearly demonstrated the United States' willingness to impose its will with little regard to the sovereignty of Latin American countries. By 1898, U.S. corporations controlled many of Mexico's infrastructural services, including railways and much of the telegraph system. While aspiring to maintain a workable relationship with the United States, Díaz officials feared U.S. domination and strove to counter American influence by expanding European investments and, by the early 1900s, moving toward increased nationalization of the railways. It was under these circumstances that radio development occurred.
In many ways, the history of Porfirian radio is the story of how technology, competing empires, and rising nation-states intertwined. Mexican consulates in Europe and the United States relayed information back home on new, useful technologies. Governments and businesses of industrialized empires benefited from these transfers, often gaining access to cheap resources and at least partial control over how and where new technologies were used. Imperial governments competed for these relationships with developing nations, including Mexico, to form international and political alliances, expand markets for manufactured goods, and to obtain greater access to natural resources. At the same time, the Díaz administration worked to play growing international competition to its advantage.
In the case of radio, wireless technology developed faster in Europe than in the United States; the largest exporters were in Britain, Germany, and France. After exploring their options and buying some experimental equipment from France, Mexican SCOP and military officials ultimately allied with German companies because they were willing to sell equipment to Mexico and allow Mexicans to operate the services. German agents additionally agreed to help build stations and to assist in the training of radio specialists. The German emperor Wilhelm II and the electric company Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG) did this to undermine Britain's Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company, which demanded from its customers control over the service in addition to money for the equipment.
The Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company was the first powerful multinational radio corporation, and they were attempting to globally monopolize radio products and services. This power play outraged leaders of other European empires who already resented Britain's domination of undersea cable communications. The company's policies were not appealing to Mexican officials either. During the late nineteenth century, the Díaz administration had worked to increase the number of domestic engineering experts, moving toward a more nationalist developmental plan. Understanding the animosity against Britain, Díaz's communications leaders partnered with the Germans, allowing the government to operate its own radio services and strengthening Mexico's position as an independent power.
With the German equipment, the Mexican government established itself more directly in Mexico's communication systems while using the devices to further consolidate the nation-state. Mexico possessed no provinces outside its own claimed political boundaries, but it did have populations in frontier territories that were resisting central control or were threatened by U.S. usurpation. With the assistance of German engineers, Mexican communications officials designed the first large-scale radio projects in Mexico, building tighter links between Mexico City and these largely autonomous and rebellious regions. Although some private foreign and domestic enterprises used radio in Mexico during this period (often without government permission), state officials drove development. This government initiative exhibits the complicated but intertwined forces of modernization, nation building, empire, and globalization that were under way during the first decade of the twentieth century. It also set the precedent for a strong state presence in radio that would color how government leaders would perceive the medium until the late 1930s. During the Porfiriato the state maintained the strongest control over wireless communications, thus providing evidence that government officials were becoming increasingly nationalist in infrastructural development well before the Mexican Revolution ousted Porfirio Díaz in 1911.
Learning of Radio: Mexican Ambassadors Abroad
The first challenge facing authorities was how to adapt radio, a foreign technology, to their own designs. Embassy officials in Europe first brought news of radio to Mexico. The military shortly thereafter began fact-finding missions abroad to examine and acquire wireless devices. The accounts of these envoys reveal the international breadth and high demand of the technology, the motives behind the businesses and governments first involved with wireless, and the reasoning behind the Mexican government's decision to purchase its own apparatuses.
Interestingly, the story of Mexican radio starts in Italy: a fitting location actually, because it was the birth place of Guglielmo Marconi, the man who first made radio a commercial success. During a business trip to Italy in 1897, Italian royalty and scientists alike showered Marconi with adulation. Publishers spread word of his marvelous innovations. This acclaim was a welcome change for Marconi. The Italian government had initially shown little interest in his inventions.
After painful rejections from Italian officials in 1895, Marconi, with the assistance of his well-connected mother, Annie Jameson — a descendent of the wealthy Scots-Irish family known for its whiskey — had found more success in London in 1896. There, he gained the support of William Preece, the chief engineer of the British Post Office. The British navy also took a strong interest in Marconi's work. In Britain, Marconi established the world's first patent on radiotelegraphy and started the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company.
Marconi returned to Rome from England to prove his worth and make a profit. He conducted experiments in the palace of the minister of the navy and between the shore of Spezia and Italian ships of war. Marconi successfully communicated with the ironclad San Martino at a distance of twelve miles. Political and military leaders, along with the rest of the nation's newspaper readers, followed the trials with "the greatest interest."
The widespread publicity about radio also reached the ears of G. A. Esteva, a Mexican consul in Rome. Recognizing the importance of the technology and the attention it was rapidly receiving, Esteva relayed information about the new marvel "that interests the entire civilized world" to Ignacio Mariscol, the secretary of foreign relations in Mexico. Esteva expounded on his initial statements by sending back publications and more elaborated opinions on the medium's development. His first package consisted of an article in the Italian journal L'elettricista by the prestigious professor Angelo Banti, which summarized some of Marconi's work. Mariscol, in turn, disseminated this news to other sectors of the administration, including President Porfirio Díaz, Secretary of War and Marine Bernardo Reyes, Secretary of Communications and Public Works Francisco Z. Mena, and Director of National Telegraphs Camilo González.
Consuming information from across the seas, Mexican officials gathered opinions about radio while seeking out possible purchases. They searched for equipment in countries leading the way in wireless experimentation — Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, and the United States. As the home of Marconi's main business, Britain quickly stood out as a rational place to turn. In November 1898, Adolfo Brule, a Mexican ambassador in London, began sending Mariscol, Mena, and González documents on "the new 'Marconi' system of wireless telegraphy." However, conflicts over who would control the service and cost quickly soured negotiations.
Reports from J. Beuif, a representative in Belgium, dramatically influenced Mexican officials. Experimental radio trials had just started in Mexico (communications officials had bought a couple experimental devices from France), and Beuif's numerous letters about radio tests and negotiations influenced government plans for the medium. The ambassador, much like the Belgian royal court, was particularly intrigued by radio's military applications.
The king of Belgium, Leopold II, had been engaged in a "philanthropic" colonization project in the African Congo. Although, according to Beuif, Belgium was a country "not disposed towards war," Leopold's imperial endeavors — even if paraded as a project of goodwill — were built on exploitation and genocide, a violent imperialist endeavor based on ideas of racial and cultural superiority. Like many other European "civilizing" and economic projects of the era, this mission was also about modernization. It incorporated newly developed technologies including railroads, machine guns, and electronic communications. These tools made possible the suppression of colonial populations while extracting ivory, rubber, and other valuable resources.
King Leopold II, whose greed had generated an interest in matters of geography, economics, and technology, quickly perceived the potential of Marconi's "ethereal" telegraph. In April 1900, while the monarch's forces were suppressing a prolonged rebellion in the Congo, Leopold invited Marconi to the Royal Palace in Brussels to exhibit his new wares. In addition to foreign ambassadors, including the Mexican envoy, the guests largely included military engineers. Befriending the Belgium general who headed the telegraph division, Beuif collected data on the applications of radio in their armed forces. According to him, Mexico too possessed "talented Military engineers and telegraphers that could take advantage of the new referred to advancements." Reyes and Mena agreed.
The SCOP had obtained its first experimental radios from France in 1899, but Reyes wasted no time in obtaining more equipment. He desired to use wireless technology to increase the power of military expeditions in places including southwest Yucatán, where Maya communities continued to resist the Mexican state. In 1901 he sent a small delegation to Europe under the leadership of Colonel Ignacio Altamira to seek out apparatuses. Over the next five years, Altamira toured Europe and the United States searching out new information. Reyes himself became more involved in obtaining equipment. In fact, he played an important role in sealing the partnership between the Díaz government and AEG, which supplied the equipment and expertise for Mexico's first radio stations. The partnership between AEG (and its successor Telefunken) and the Mexican government would remain strong for two decades, outliving the downfall of Díaz in 1911.
Starting in 1904, word of U.S.-manufactured wireless equipment became more prevalent as the U.S. Navy realized the potential of the technology. Colonel Altamira reported on American radios able to transmit successfully at a distance of fifty miles. The following year, Andrew Plecher, a U.S. businessman, approached the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles with a proposal to establish a wireless system between the state of Sinaloa and the Southern District of the Territory of Baja California. The consul dutifully relayed the information, though the Díaz administration had no desire for a U.S.-controlled radio system, especially in that part of the country where American influences were particularly strong. The Díaz regime was selective in its providers of radio devices, and it was Mexican ambassadors and military officials abroad who provided the administration with information on what was available and how other governments and businesses used the technology.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Radio in Revolution by J. Justin Castro. Copyright © 2016 Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS.
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Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: A Tale of Two Revolutions
1. Porfirian Radio, Imperial Designs, and the Mexican Nation
2. Radio in Revolution
3. Rebuilding a Nation at War
4. Growth and Insecurity
5. Invisible Hands
6. Broadcasting State Culture and Populist Politics
Conclusion: Early Radio and Its Legacies
Notes
Bibliography
Index