Theater and the Making of Urban Public Life in 19th-Century Mexico

This paper examines theater’s importance to the fashioning of public reputations in nineteenth-century Mexico City. Drawing on an array of sources including memoirs, newspapers, and archival documents, it shows how engagement with the city’s thriving theater culture became a defining feature of inclusion in city life. Physically attending shows, investing in or running a theater, and being conversant with the stock characters, plotlines, and imagery found onstage bestowed status. It also conferred social and political capital, which individuals could—and did—leverage for current or future gain. Access to this aspect of urban life, however, was always unequal. In looking carefully at where and how these boundaries were drawn, this paper sheds light on issues of citizenship and belonging in one of the largest and most important cities in the Americas. While focused on Mexico City, the paper’s conclusions suggest that similar processes may have been at work in urban areas across Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States in the nineteenth century.