Saints Days' Temblors, Deadly Floods, and Portents of Doom: Progress, Community, and Disaster in Porfirian Mexico

On November 2, 1894 a massive earthquake struck Mexico City, causing widespread panic and damage to the capital’s infrastructure.  A stark reminder of the power of nature, the temblor affected Mexicans in different ways.  For those citizens who embraced the Positivist ideals of order and progress, the quake offered an unprecedented opportunity to explore the power of geological change.  For Mexicans from the lower levels of society, the event signaled the end of the world.  This paper explores these themes and others by examining Porfirian-era disasters, both natural and manmade and their effects on Mexicans and Mexico alike.  What social anxieties did temblors and incidents such as the June 1888 flood in Leon, Guanajuato produce?  How did the Porfirian government respond?  How did the infrastructure of modernity withstand floods, geographical challenges, human-induced violence and the afflictions wrought by internal migration?  Most importantly, how did Mexicans reconcile their worldviews with the warnings of 1910?