6025 - Mexican Elites: The Social Kaleidoscope of Wealth, Prestige and Power , 1750 to 1950

This presentation examines the changing nature of Mexican elites over the two centuries from 1750 to 1950, by placing them within the context of independence, Liberal, authoritarian, revolutionary, and capitalist movements. Changes from colonial Spanish and criollo government authorities, to military officers, hacienda owners and churchmen, to mestizo Liberal politicians and intellectuals, to Europeanized social and economic magnates, to indigenous and mestizo revolutionaries, to their bourgeois sons and daughters display a kaleidoscope in which the tumblers include government, landholders, church leaders, and business leaders influenced by variable desires for Enlightened efficiency and administration, the prestige of property ownership, independence, secular society, cosmopolitan recognition, social and economic equality, and modern development. The presentation combines a discussion of these major trends and individual examples of the elites who epitomize the patterns under discussion, concluding with an examination of the elites included in the Register of 300 the social register for Mexico in the 1950s. The paper is based on archival and secondary research.    

Palabras claves: Mexico, Elites, Social change

Autores: William Beezley, william Beezley (univerity of arizona, Ud States of Am / USA)