The Pittsburgh of the Andes: Peruvian Developmentalism and the Santa River Corporation

This presentation traces the rise and fall of the Santa Corporation, Peru’s first attempt at industrialization from above. Established in 1943 by Manuel Prado, the purpose of this public corporation was to foster the development of a steel industry in the city of Chimbote in the Ancash Department in the Andes. The corporation reflected president’s Prado’s vision of development, which required reimagining Andean geography, as a hydroelectric plant would use the waters from the mountain chain, which would in turn power the steel plant, turning Chimbote into the country’s main industrial port in what was predominantly an agrarian country. Throughout its history, the Santa Corporation became the focus not only of economic debate but of diplomatic and political disputes. During its first years, there was intense competition between the United States and Axis sympathizers to see who would finance the project, as it could assure Peru’s loyalty during the Second World War. During the Cold War, right-wing governments, suspicious of state intervention, defunded and created legal barriers to the project. In the end, the state corporation was dissolved in the 1970s – a process accelerated by the Ancash earthquake of 1970 – putting an end to the history of this early developmentalist project.

Despite its failure, the Santa Corporation was the first attempt at large-scale industrialization in Peru, predating the arrival of Modernization Theory, shedding light on local perceptions of development before the Cold War. Likewise, the construction of the hydroelectric plant showed the ability of local scientists to manipulate and reconfigure Andean hydraulic generosity. Thus, while unable to fulfill the state’s developmental dreams, the history of the Santa Corporation offers new ways of exploring the Peruvian mountain chain through transnational imaginaries of modernity, as Chimbote should have become, in Prado’s own words, the “Pittsburgh of the Andes.”