Capturing the Beautiful Stranger: Legislating Electricity in Mexico City, 1900–20s

The electrification of Mexico City profoundly altered daily life for its citizens. At the turn of the twentieth century, faster transportation provided by electric traction carried workers to factories, now with machinery powered by the new energy source, and back to the city center to explore the new opportunities for entertainment offered by an expansion of nightlife. Images of the electrified city speak of man’s mastery of natural forces and resources, of control, progress and order. This conceals the contingencies, complexity and, oftentimes, violence that accompanied technological change. Electrocutions, electric tram accidents, electricity theft, among others, were some of the everyday realities brought about by electrification. This paper examines the challenges injury claims (derived from tramways accidents) and electricity theft cases placed on the legal system. It follows the historical actors brought to the courts (injured individuals, suspects of theft, and the Mexican Light and Power, among others) and the legal debate lawyers employed in their efforts to defend their clients from prosecution as well as judges who sought to legislate the new energy source. Electricity theft, for instance, allows us to consider how the policing of electricity and the criminalization of its inappropriate consumption was not confined to the public space. Fraudulent connections to power lines on the streets were established to power lights, appliances and machinery. Inspectors extended their gaze beyond doorways. Clandestine installations, which physically bridged the public and the domestic, allowed for the surveillance of behavior within private spaces The latter not only required new policing strategies but unlike other types of theft, it was carried out by individuals in charge of safeguarding private interests.