Gender and generation: the university reform movement in Argentina, 1918.

In March 1918, students at the National University of Cordoba (UNC) rebelled against the university system, accusing professors of being authoritarian, inefficient, clerically oriented, and obscurantist. Founded in 1613 by Jesuits, the UNC--Argentina's first university--was run by conservative members of Cordoba's most prestigious and richest Catholic families. In 1856, when the university fell under the administration of the national government after the period of Jesuit and Franciscan control, UNC faculty members began a tradition of anti-secularism and nepotism that continued even after 1885 when the Avellaneda Law gave the university the right to govern itself without state intervention. (1) The University Reform Movement, as it came to be known, rapidly took on a national character when university students in Buenos Aires (1918), La Plata (1919-1920), Santa Fe (1919), and Tucuman (1921) joined their fellow students in Cordoba in the protest. Through strikes, rallies, petitions to the national authorities, and the seizure of the UNC in September 1918, the reformists successfully forced the national government to carry out the University Reform. The distinctive nature of the movement derived not only from its radical demands, but also from its extremist tactics, the level of sophistication of its organization, and its major continental impact. In fact, the Reform Movement rapidly spread from Cordoba to Lima (1919), Cuzco (1920), Santiago de Chile (1920), and Mexico (1921). (2)

Traditionally, historians have analyzed the demands and ideological contents of the movement, its different historical stages, and the numerous setbacks it suffered from counter-reformist governments during the first half of the twentieth century. When emphasis was placed on the students who participated in the movement, scholars wrote their biographies and focused on their ideological trajectories from the time of the Reform through later stages in their lives. (3) In contrast, this essay is an analysis of the collective self-representation of the reformists--the young, male, and socially privileged students who participated in the University Reform Movement. In 1930, former student leader Julio V. Gonzalez argued that "this reform has allowed us to discover ourselves, to recognize ourselves as a generation, that is, as men ready to work together for common ideas." (4) My goal is to examine the process of construction of the reformist identity and to analyze what I consider its two most significant interrelated meanings: a particular form of masculinity and a distinct generation. In order to reconstruct these meanings, I study the reformists' program of demands, their corporate organization, and their participation in violent protests. I concentrate on the events that took place on 1918, a period marked by the impetuousness of the student movement, its focus on educational issues, and the success its members achieved in meeting their agenda. (5) In fact, on October 7, 1918, President Hipolito Yrigoyen approved a national decree that incorporated almost all of the reformist demands. I use sources from students, student organizations, and university student centers from all over the country, but I primarily focus on reformists from the National University of Cordoba, the National University of Buenos Aires (UBA), and the National University of La Plata (UNLP).

I argue that five points of the reformist agenda--student participation in university councils, elimination of required attendance, selection of professors by competition, periodical reviews of their performance, and docencia libre, which meant that there could be more than one professor teaching the same course--rested on the students' self-representation as models of a new kind of masculinity. This model of masculinity was based on morality, science, self-determinism, intellectualism, and idealism and allowed students to justify the demands in their agenda. I use the term masculinity to refer to a set of cultural attributes, a particular social status, and especially, a subjective identity. (6) Identity, in this analysis, is a historical construction that resulted from the collective process of self-representation through which a group of young, male students defined themselves by gathering, interpreting, and enacting a repertoire of cultural and social traits. The reformists used the notion of a generation, based on a common lived experience and on the historical "mission" of constructing a new university to represent themselves as the incarnation of the new masculinity. The idea of a generation emphasized students' internal social homogeneity, as well as their sense of antagonism, which collectively divorced them from their professors and non-reformist students. The "men of 1918" embodied a model of manhood in overt opposition to "the mediocre men," the professors whom students depicted as corrupt, ignorant, obscurantist, authoritarian, and materialistic. In fact, identities operate through exclusion and opposition, that is, "the only way to circumscribe an identity is by contrasting it against other identities." (7) Identity formation, then, is a process of both self-assertion and relation to the other. (8) In addition, it implies not only self-understanding, but also how others represent us. However, the two processes do not always converge. (9) This essay focuses mainly on forms of self-definition, but at times, some issues of identification by others arise. Furthermore, the differences between students and professors allow me to show the plurality of masculinities and most important, that the hierarchy and unequal distribution of power that characterized the relation between these different masculinities was ardently contested by those who were subordinated. (10)

I aim to show how identity formation (students' self-representation as reformists) and student politics (corporate organization, collective actions, and agenda) were processes that took place simultaneously. In this analysis, politics is a combination of action, actors, and identities where participants manipulate, strategize, and modify their identities while the form, content, and effectiveness of identity mobilization affect both collective action and its outcomes. (11) It is my contention that the organization of the Argentine University Federation (FUA) in April 1918 had a crucial impact on the construction of the students' collective identity. The FUA provided students with an institutional sphere for common work, mutual recognition, face-to-face interaction, and the enactment of their self-styled characteristics--intellectualism, rationalism, and political responsibility. Students also resorted to rebellion and protest to express their discontent and to press for reform. Strikes, rallies, and particularly, the forceful seizure of the UNC on September 9, 1918 had a strong empowering effect on the students and allowed them to take on different identity characteristics. Reformists came to view their mission as an epic crusade in which they became heroic warriors when they realized that university elections, official communications with national authorities, and formal written petitions were useless. Violent rebelliousness proved their masculinity without contradicting the intellectualism and morality they displayed, for instance, in student congresses. This shows the complexity, ambiguity, and multilayered character of the reformists' identity, as well as its functionality. In fact, my analysis reveals how students prioritized violence and combativeness over intellectualism and rationality according to their political necessities.

Rebellion and protest brought students closer to working-class men and allowed them to compare and contrast their collective identity with workers in a more positive way than they did vis-a-vis their professors and non-reformist students. Reformists found "brothers" in the workers when they recognized that both groups suffered from repression while struggling for rights and respect, one in the factory and one in the classroom. Students also pointed to workers as the social group most dramatically excluded from the university and demanded open attendance and lower fees in order to democratize university education. In this sense, reformists fought for men who were excluded from the university classrooms, but not for women. By 1918, the university was fundamentally a homosocial space and, in this sense, the Reform Movement mirrored the university. All the reformists were men, and the few female students who attended university at that time did not participate in the movement. Most significantly, women's status as a minority within the university system was not addressed as a problem by the reformists. Interestingly, reformists' sources do speak of women in a way that is particularly relevant for a study of collective identification. I show that when reformists referred to women, they exclusively focused on the "prudish," "fanatically devout wives" of the professors whom they accused of being clericalist and monastic. Women appear as major, determining forces in their husbands' clericalism and conservatism and are also blamed for raising non-reformist students. In this sense, my analysis fundamentally focuses on how men (the reformist students) constructed their identities in their interactions--opposition and/or collaboration--with other men (professors, workers, non-reformist students). However, by introducing women I want to demonstrate that "the construction of masculinities on intramale lines is itself shown to be an aspect of male privilege." (12)

The "Men of '18'" versus the "Mediocre Men": The Reformist Agenda

The University Reform Movement of 1918 had several national and regional antecedents of student organization and mobilization, such as the Uruguayan Association of Students (1893), the First International Congress of American Students in Montevideo (1908), and the League of American Students (1908), which sponsored two international congresses in Buenos Aires (1910) and Lima (1912). In 1871, the suicide of an UBA law student who failed an exam sparked student protests against university hierarchies and disciplinary measures. (13) In 1903, students at the UBA Law School went on strike, and two years later medical students joined them. The students protested the exam system, high fees, and the appointment of professors for personal and political reasons rather than intellectual competence. By 1906, several of the demands had been met but the most important result of the agitation was the creation of student centers (centros de estudiantes) managed by students at the Law, Medicine, and Engineering Schools. Student centers provided student representation at the governing bodies, organized and coordinated academic and social activities, and published a periodical. In 1908, UBA students founded the University Federation of Buenos Aires (FUBA) to coordinate the efforts of the school-based student centers in a broader organization.

By 1918, the socio-political international context had dramatically changed. The students who would join the University Reform Movement had witnessed the 1910 Mexican Revolution with its social reforms favoring peasants and workers, the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and the establishment of the first communist regime in the modern era, and World War I, which represented a profound intellectual disappointment with nineteenth-century political and social philosophies. This reinforced a climate of political mobilization and social unrest, and revitalized hopes for transformation. In this context, the movement that began in Cordoba in 1918 far surpassed earlier attempts of student organization and protest.

In December 1917, at the end of that academic year, the student center at the UNC School of Medicine sent a memorandum to the University Superior Council and to the National Minister of Justice and Public Education Dr. Jose Salinas. In this memo, medical students complained about the low quality of the education, the lack of experimental laboratories, and fundamentally, the recent end to the internship program at the Hospital de Clinicas. The elimination of this program deprived students from the most important practical experience of their studies. (14) When the new academic year began in March 1918, medical students discovered that their demands had been ignored. As a response, they decided to go on strike--a massive student absence from the classrooms--in a joint action with the School of Engineering student center. For their part, engineering students had been complaining about new regulations for student attendance since the end of the previous school year. Law students soon joined medical and engineering students, thus extending the movement to all the university institutions in Cordoba. Twenty-four delegates from the three schools organized a Comite Pro-Reforma (Pro-Reform Committee) and came out with a wide-ranging program of radical changes including student participation in university councils, free attendance, and stricter control over professors. Months later, students transformed the Pro-Reform Committee into the University Federation of Cordoba (FUC) and helped the newly created national Argentine University Federation (FUA) organize its first congress in the city. During 1918, reformists continued to strike, protest, and rally. The university was closed on two occasions by order of the authorities, and a national intervention ordered by President Yrigoyen followed. Finally, the reformist students forcefully seized the UNC.

Following a broader trend that has linked the middle classes with the student movements of the twentieth century, a historiographical tradition has characterized Argentina's Reform Movement as an expression of the educated, ascending middle classes. (15) Argentina's early industrialization, external commercial explosion, and large-scale urbanization had many consequences for the incipient middle classes. For the children of the European immigrants who had begun arriving to Argentina at the end of the nineteenth century, these consequences included the possibility for economic progress, social ascendance, and cultural integration. Economic opportunities coupled with an increasing access to education. The state universalized primary education in an 1884 law that made it obligatory, free, and lay, and at the same time, the government attempted to extend and popularize secondary education. (16) Higher education became the basis for the prestige of the middle classes and a means to fulfill aspirations of social mobility and political leadership. Historians who have defined the Reform Movement as an expression of the middle classes have actually followed the reformists' characterization of their own movement. (17) Students considered their professors clerical, materialistic, and bound to traditional colonial families--all characteristics associated to the landed oligarchy. In contrast, they identified themselves with science, liberalism, and liberal professions, all aspects related to the middle-classes. (18)

In spite of this emphasis on its middle-class constituency, key figures of the Reform Movement included members of prestigious, traditional, and even oligarchic families. (19) The reformists overcame the social differences that could have threatened the unity of the movement by recognizing that what was important for them was the fact that they had a common destiny rather than a common origin. (20) As a result, reformist students were inclined to acknowledge their political and cultural similarities while overlooking their potentially divisive social differences. This led them to the general conclusion--or at least the conclusion they wanted to accept publicly--that they conformed not only a distinct generation, but also a homogeneous one. As the self-representational concept of the reformists, the "generation of 1918" was a powerful homogenizer of the Reform Movement. Mark Roseman calls this emphasis on the social uniformity within the group of those participating in a particular generation, "the generational myth." The myth implies that as a result of their common historical experience, the members of a particular generation are able to transcend class divisions and stand outside society. (21) In the case of the reformists, they based their political fraternity not only on age, their status as students, and gender, but also on a common purpose and on social equality; all aspects that became the axes for a homogenizing self-identification.

Julio V. Gonzalez wrote what would become a canonical interpretation of the relation between the Reform and a theory of generations. Gonzalez refers to himself and his fellow students as "the men of '18" acknowledging that his generation was born from the Reform movement. He asserts that for those who participated in it, the Movement was a cause of personal and collective self-discovery, and the origin of their entrance to the public arena. Gonzalez affirmed that a generation is "the succession of men who appear in a set place and time, and who are distinguished by a unique sensibility and ideology, with which they carry out tasks that mark a historical period." (22) Accepting that their common mission was the construction of a new university was not, however, the result of fortuitous circumstances and unplanned action, but "the explosion of a state of consciousness." (23) Students became aware of the problems of the educational system as well as of their own lack of freedoms and rights. This state of consciousness led to student organizations, protests, the formulation of demands, and the concomitant process of collective self-representation as a distinct group: the reformists. The Pro-Reform Committee referred to this dual process of consciousness and agency when it affirmed that the Reform Movement "is the fruit of an excess of will, working as a result of an excess of thought." (24)

The idea of the Reform Movement as a "revolution of consciousness" (25) introduces the question of identity politics, that is, the fact that subjects base their politics on a sense of a particular identity. The relationship between identity and politics has become a heated topic of debate. After an initial period when some understood identity as "ground or basis of social and political action" and others as "a product of social or political action," scholars started to question interpretations that establish a cause-effect relationship between identity and politics. (26) I consider that the reformists' process of identification illustrates a case in which organizing and acting were combined with gaining and reinforcing awareness in a single process. For reformist students, modifying the order of things was concomitant to fashioning their identity. More than twenty years after the events of 1918, Julio V. Gonzalez reflected:

  I was born from the University Reform into public life when I was just
  twenty. The Reform Movement was my call to politics; it awoke my
  dedication to common wealth. It educated me, it made me disciplined,
  and it gave me the temperament that is acquired during a struggle,
  that is, the disposition toward pure ideas and generous
  intentions. (27)

Searching for legitimacy for their mission and for an expression of the extreme novelty and purity of their collective character, the generation of 1918 defined itself as orphaned. Gonzalez maintained that the reformists rejected the ideological legacy of their parents and teachers and the values embraced by the adults, and that this act of denial was the condition for change and transformation. Still, "orphanhood" was the result of a selective rejection of "academic parents." Important adult thinkers, academics, and political leaders such as Jose Ingenieros, Ricardo Rojas, Alejandro Korn, Joaquin V. Gonzalez, Alfredo Palacios, Juan B. Justo, and Manuel Galvez exercised considerable intellectual and personal influence upon the reformists. Students read their works, supported their legislative and political programs, and interacted with them in discussion groups and cultural associations. (28) These progressive intellectuals publicly supported the Reform Movement and participated in rallies and meetings conferring legitimacy to the reformists' demands and corroborating their accusations against the UNC professors. (29) Equally significant, regardless of their age, figures such as Justo, Bravo, and Palacios embodied students' aspirations to science, liberalism, and modernism.

In 1885, the National Law 1597, the so-called "Ley Avellaneda," defined the relationship of the Universities of Cordoba and Buenos Aires--Argentina's second university founded in 1821--with the federal government. (30) The law established that Argentine universities were free from state control and could govern themselves by implementing their own policies and disciplinary measures. According to this law, universities could determine the format and content of the programs of study and examinations, elect their own officials, and manage their internal funds. The law also established the roles of the different components of the university government. In Argentina, the university is divided into facultades, individual schools that specialize in particular courses of study. Each school has a dean, a vice-dean, and a directive council (Consejo Directivo) an administrative body that at the time of the Reform was comprised exclusively of professors. The head of the entire university is the rector, followed by the vicerector, and the upper council (Consejo Superior) an administrative organ that consisted of the deans of each school and faculty members in 1918. According to the law, the university assembly (Asamblea Universitaria) composed by the superior and directive councils, elected the rector. (31)

Reformists rebelled against the unequal distribution of rights and duties that denied them voice and agency by demanding participation in politics, the ultimate sphere of masculine identity formation in Argentina, at least until the mid-twentieth century. (32) In the context of the university, politics referred to student participation in the university councils through elected representatives, student involvement in the election of faculty members and university authorities, and student access to the general process of decision-making on institutional, academic, and organizational issues. Free attendance and docencia libre embodied student demands for independence in choosing professors, the content of their studies, and their courses. Reformists associated the university system with formal politics by referring to the relation between students and faculty in terms of governors versus the governed. They characterized this relation in negative terms when they described the professors as arbitrary and despotic authorities and the students as "subjects." (33) In contrast, reformists wanted to transform the university into a "democratic republic" where students were invested with power and freedom. National politics was a source of inspiration. In 1912, thanks to middle-class pressure to expand the electoral base by easing voting requirements, the Saenz Pena electoral law extended the secret and obligatory ballot to all males over 18. As a consequence, in 1916, Radical Party candidate Yrigoyen was elected president, ending the rule of the conservative oligarchy of landowners. Reformists pointed out the contradiction between the aristocratic and authoritarian character of the university government and the democratic organization of Argentine society. In "the century of democracy," the reformists argued, the university could not survive as an antidemocratic institution. (34)

However, reformists did not only justify their demands for participation by referring to the historical predominance of democracy. More importantly, students had to prove they would be able to correctly handle the new responsibilities. In his pastoral condemning the Reform Movement, Cordoba Bishop Zenon Bustos y Ferreyra maintained that the student upheaval was the direct result of lax adult authority over young men. According to the bishop, these young men could not exercise self-control: they were prone to licentious behavior and incapable of managing their personal freedom. (35) Since age and functional status within the university system were the two factors that deprived them of the rights they were demanding, students denied that they were child-like and dependent, in constant need of parental control and faculty authority.

In contrast, reformists asserted a generational identity based on self-control, intellectualism, responsibility, morality, bravery, and virility, and fervently contested faculty members whom they depicted as corrupt, immoral, inefficient, and ignorant. Most importantly, reformists framed these characteristics in gender terms. Students embodied a new kind of masculinity that was the result of a fundamental opposition between the "reformist men" and the "mediocre men." In this sense, the Reform Movement brought forth "a new man." (36) The characteristics of this new man helped reformist students validate their capacity for political participation and their right to exercise freedom. Equally significant, the reformist ideal of masculinity was a superior alternative to the inefficiency and corruption of the faculty members. The student dynamics of self-representation and contestation show that the clash among different masculinities is proof not only of their plurality or diversity, but also of the dimension of power, domination, and hierarchy that characterizes relations among different groups of men. Reformists challenged their subordinated position based on their age and status as students. They did so by questioning the moral, intellectual, and political skills of the men who occupied the dominant position in the given pattern of gender relations and, for that reason, embodied the "hegemonic masculinity." (37)

In 1925, UNC professor Raul Orgaz defined generation as a group of men who have followed the same "masters," learned from the same ideas, shared the same goals, and who "have buried the same ghosts, that is, have buried the same idols beneath a new wave of beliefs and desires." (38) Indeed, the generation of 1918 formulated its identity in these very same oppositional terms. Stuart Hall argues that identities are constructed through, not outside difference. Hall affirms that "identities can function as points of identification and attachment only because of their capacity to exclude, to leave out, to render 'outside,' abjected." (39) In their professors, students saw men who were different from themselves, men they wanted not to emulate but to contest. The reformist program was the expression of a collective identity students constructed by means of a number of dichotomies--old/young, obscurantism/scientific knowledge, clericalism/liberalism, inertia/progress, authoritarianism/freedom, corruption/morality--in which they always embodied the latter term.

Reformists denounced the nepotism that characterized the selection of faculty members and the consequent sectarianism. They also strongly criticized the fact that professors remained in their posts for life due to extreme greediness rather than academic commitment. Students despised the faculty's professional apathy, the lack of preparation in their disciplinary fields, their incompetence for administrative tasks, and their authoritarian approach to discipline. Students declared: "Until now, universities have been the secular refuge of the mediocre, salaries for the ignorant, health care for the sick, and what is worse: the place where all forms of tyranny and lack of sensibility found a school that repeated these models." (40)

UNC reformists especially condemned the clerical orientation of their professors. Students believed that clericalism was an anachronistic colonial legacy related to prejudice, obscurantism, anti-liberalism, anti-scientific beliefs, anti-intellectualism, and academic inertia. The influence of Catholicism was seen not only in the content and form of the education, and in the very spirit of the institution--the main library did not have the works of Bernard, Darwin, Marx, and Engels; the university coat of arms incorporated the name of Jesus; December 8th was dedicated to the celebration of the Virgin Mary, and students had to take their professional oath on the Bible (41)--but also in the selection of faculty members. In the mind of reformists, education and clericalism were so closely connected that FUC delegate Horacio Valdes equated the two most powerful figures of both the Catholic Church and the university when asserting that "at the university, a pope is chosen every four years: he is known as the university rector." (42) In contrast, the commitment to scientific knowledge and progress was the measure of the reformists' personal and collective merit, a merit they invoked to portray themselves as those who would one day rule not only the university, but also the nation. (43) This commitment to knowledge made students demand a curriculum reform that would include new courses in art and social sciences and the improvement of the research aspects of experimental sciences.

Students believed that obligatory attendance was the ultimate example of professors' authoritarianism and academic inaptitude. According to reformists, professors needed to force students to attend classes with disciplinary measures in order to guarantee an audience they could

not draw in by means of personal prestige, academic knowledge, or intellectual recognition. The effort to end the attendance requirement was a struggle for the "right to think on our own" and for the "liberty to learn." (44) It was a fight for self-determination, for freedom to legitimize the best professors by voluntarily attending their classes. Reformists thought that "youth must be left to choose their own masters: they [students] are sure to make the right decision." (45) Moreover, professors arbitrarily punished students who expressed original ideas or contested their opinions and rewarded those who passively repeated professors' views, perpetuating a state of "mental slavery." (46) Reformists referred to the relations between feudal lords and feudal serfs as a metaphor for the faculty/student relations, and pointed to harsh and arbitrary discipline as a means for creating submissive subjects and emasculated men. In the memorandum sent to President Yrigoyen requesting state intervention at the university, reformists maintained that "with youth submitted to the current regime, young men will leave the university and head out in the world not with an honorable accolade of pride and dignity, but with the face marked by the master's whip, condemned to a shameful, unconditional submission." (47)

For reformists, then, professors were "mediocre men." (48) In 1913, Jose Ingenieros published El hombre mediocre, a work that rivaled Jose Rodo's Ariel in its impact upon Latin American youth. (49) Even though Ingenieros did not directly participate in the Reform Movement, he did give his support to the students, and later, reformist leaders underscored his intellectual influence in their generation. Ingenieros defined the "hombre mediocre" (the mediocre man) as a common or mass man who fears originality. He never speaks for himself and is incapable of forming or striving for an ideal: this is why he stays within the ordinary. In addition, he is upset with anything that disrupts the routine. The "mediocre man's" social function consists in providing stability rather than progress. For this reason, he rejects creation and activity and embraces silence and inertia. The "mediocre man," Ingenieros argued, contrasts with the "superior man." The "superior man" distinguishes the needs of his time and uses his talents to fulfill them. He never loses faith in what he is doing, because he constantly reasserts the correctness and significance of his mission. He does not fear standing alone or facing obstacles and criticism in order to accomplish his goals. For the "superior man," ideals are motivating factors for individual and social progress. According to Ingenieros, young men are the ultimate formulators of ideals and will bring about a better future. In fact, Ingenieros argued that human perfectibility was a privilege of the youth; only young men strove for perfection. This ideal motivated originality and sparked hope, inviting young men to take action. Furthermore, the very same capacity for renovation and for bringing about change was a trait of masculine identity. Ingenieros affirmed that "masculinity itself can only be measured by the capability to renew lessons that have already been learned." (50)

Reformists identified themselves as Ingenieros's "superior men" and argued that the university was not reduced to a realm of professional formation, but it represented the place in which male students would acquire the traits of "the new man." In his speech at the FUA First National Congress, FUA President Osvaldo Loudet affirmed that "universities cannot just produce doctors, lawyers, and engineers: they must also produce men." (51) Reformists emphasized that they were uncorrupted men committed to a "spiritual crusade," a "moral revolution" in search of intellectual, personal, and collective redemption. In fact, for this generation, the struggle to become a new kind of men was intrinsically related to the longing for self-improvement. Student Walter Elena stated that "there was an ineffable rapture, an unstoppable desire to become good, to work." (52) Youth, then, was the spiritual alternative to corrupt adulthood, a condition for change and progress, and more significantly, the guarantee of morality and the source of heroism. (53) This heroism became an example of these new men's moral character. Professors, reformists argued, empowered themselves by abusing their authority over students and by depriving them of the possibility to participate in decision-making. Students confronted these attempts of emasculation through a brave, impetuous, and heroic rebellion.

Thinkers and Fighters: The FUA and the Seizure of the UNC

Reformists created and expressed their collective identity not only through a specific agenda, but also through organization and action. One of the most significant stages in the development of the reformist identity entailed corporate organization. Student centers allowed students to deal with problems specifically related to their schools while university federations coordinated the action of student centers in a centralized fashion. The University Federation of Cordoba (FUC), created in May 1918, was a direct consequence of the Reform Movement. It was predated by the Pro-Reform Committee constituted by the law, engineering, and medical student centers in March 1918. However, one of the most important organizational legacies of the Reform Movement was the establishment of the Argentine University Federation (FUA) in April 1918. The FUA coordinated the reformist efforts on a national scale, organized national meetings and congresses, supported the different local federations when necessary, and became the official national student spokesperson. Theoretically, the FUA, which is still ruled by a council made up of delegates from each university federation, represents all university students in the country. In 1918, there were 14,745 university students in Argentina. (54)

The FUA served students to "get to know each other, communicate, and understand one another." (55) FUA meetings and congresses provided students with an instance for personal, face-to-face interaction, for discussing common problems and demands, and for proposing alternatives and solutions. The FUA gave students a sense of community and reinforced the feeling that they all shared an identity as students and that this differentiated them from other social groups. Most significantly, it institutionally reasserted a sense of belonging that they had already recognized as a result of experiencing common threats and injustices. Corporate organization also expressed the characteristics that distanced reformist students from their professors: political responsibility, organizational ability, intellectual capacity, commitment to a fair cause, and morality. Students knew that their demand for political participation in university councils required that they show their ability for self-organization. The creation of the FUA was evidence of this ability. Moreover, they showed outstanding organization skills by coordinating large public acts and demonstrations that looked for public support to the Reformist cause. (56)

The FUA allowed reformists to differentiate themselves not only from the faculty, but also from non-reformist students. Due to the strong anti-Catholic and anticlerical nature of the Reform movement, Catholic students remained an opposing force. The non-reformist students were not only religious men, but also faculty's allies. According to the reformists, Catholic students repeated the behavior and values of the "mediocre men." In Cordoba, they founded the Federation of Catholic Students in 1917. The members of the Federation had close familial and political relations with the Corda Frates, a Catholic logia integrated by powerful politicians, legislators, and university professors. (57) In 1918, when the reformists formally established the Pro-Reform Committee, Catholic students responded by organizing the Comite Pro-Defensa de la Universidad (University Pro-Defense Committee). (58) The reformists fought for change--exemplified by their slogan "Monks, no! Dogmas, no! Corda, no!" (59)--while the Catholics battled for continuity. The Pro-Defense Committee sought the acceptance of the FUA but the FUA, which was born reformist, declared that it only recognized the Pro-Reform Committee as the representational organ of Cordoba's students. In June 1918, after the triumph of Antonio Nores, candidate of the Pro-Defense Committee for rector and enemy of the reformists, the FUA radicalized its position by expelling all Catholic students. (60) In opposition to the Catholic Pro-Defense Committee, which wanted "to preserve the university spirit of the Middle Ages," the FUA represented "the healthy, liberal, and progressive tendency to make the university a place for science." (61)

The FUA held its First National Congress in Cordoba in July 1918 with delegations of students from Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Tucuman, La Plata, and Cordoba. The Congress allowed the different student delegations--more than seventy students--to meet in a process that involved mutual recognition and social identification. Student delegate Walter Elena remembered that

  We were introduced and we studied one another. (...) Rodriguez
  Jauregui, the well-known delegate from Quilmes, whispered:
  --Listen, man, no guys with their hair slicked back, no dandies here.
  --What?
  --You know, I am saying that none of them are those model types, those
  useless boys. These guys are all first-rate! (62)

Moreover, the congress gave reformists the chance to demonstrate that violence, impetuousness, and eagerness for revolt were not the exclusive characteristics that defined their generation, as argued by those who opposed the movement. During the FUA congress, students acted like thoughtful young men who devoted themselves to intellectual work. By the end of the Congress, the FUA had sanctioned forty-seven projects. The main points of these projects would be included in the presidential decree of October 1918 that reformed the university. (63) Gonzalez reflected on the complex nature of the reformists' different roles and the functionality of the identity they adopted by asserting that "many have argued that this student union only serves to organize violent protests in the form of strikes or revolts, and that it is incapable of meeting in a serious, calm way to debate the issues it must face. The congress proved that this was not so. It proved that students are ready to take on both roles, depending on which is needed at a given moment." (64)

In his analysis of Brazilian law students, Andrew Kirkendall argues that each new generation has to ensure that its assertion of authority is convincing not only to others but most significantly to itself. (65) This can be applied to the Argentine reformist students, who knew that their demands, message of change, and identity enactment needed an audience. Since the main goal of the congress was mutual discovery as a collective, which required self-display among peers, other students constituted the first audience. However, FUA students also needed social recognition and legitimization, which they could only achieve by "presenting" the Congress to a larger group of spectators. Following the tradition of Cordoba's reformists, who organized their acts and meetings at the prestigious Rivera Indarte Theater, the FUA launched its congress with an act opened to the general public in the same theater. The congress allowed students to stage the intellectual force that collectively identified them in contrast with their "mediocre professors." Indeed, it involved a significant aspect of theatricality. In his descriptions of the discourses and debates, Elena reconstructs the students' performance as a public display of personal charisma, passionate commitment, and discursive competence.

  Then it was the turn of the poet of our delegation, Alberto Mendioroz.
  The audience was either familiar with his literary works or perhaps
  enchanted by his relaxed posture, because a wave of applause welcomed
  him on stage. His clear, calm, metallic voice was so perfect for his
  moving discourse that the audience again applauded him energetically.
  He said things so beautiful, so true, and so deep, that he seemed like
  a hive welling with honey. When Mendioroz finished, the audience could
  not stop applauding. The other congress members and I came to our feet
  and offered him a standing ovation. (66)

During the FUA Congress, reformists recognized that it was a privilege to have access to a university education. However, they disputed the fact that the university was an "aristocratic stronghold" and an "exotic cyist" by proposing to democratize the access to higher education and to tighten the relation between the university and society. In order to do this, students came up with the idea of extension universitaria. University extension entailed a formal institutional democratization of the university based on easing course requirements, adopting open attendance, and abolishing fees and tuition to allow working people to attend. It also promoted the participation of university students and professors in teaching courses, giving conferences, and organizing workshops at factories and labor unions. Julio V. Gonzalez described the extension universitaria as the proletarianization of the university. (67)

At a glance, it seems that reformists thought of the democratization of the university exclusively in class terms. The university extension was explicitly projected to benefit the working class. Gonzalez argued that this was so because workers would bring to the university a clear notion of the social, economic, and cultural problems that needed solutions and were "the only class that is not yet included within the University." (68) In fact, the working classes had no access to higher education, but they were not alone. Women were very poorly represented among university students. In this regard, the UBA--which along-side UNLP was the most liberal and progressive university by the time of the Reform--offers a good example. In 1905, only eleven women graduated, and between 1905 and 1910, only twenty-five completed graduate and undergraduate courses. (69) Still, I could not find a single document from the reformists addressing the question of women as a distinctive social group suffering from the lack of access to a university education. Nor were women included within the working classes. The university extension, then, was not only thought of in class terms, but in gendered class terms, since reformists referred to a working class that they considered to be male. In addition, FUA President Osvaldo Loudet equated the universal ballot to universal access to higher education. He argued that in a country in which all men could vote, these men should also have the possibility of entering the university. From the right to vote, which was not a class but a masculine privilege, Loudet derived a new concession for men: the right to higher education. (70)

When women do appear in the reformists' sources, they are always linked to religion, obscurantism, inertia, and tradition. Reformists blamed the religious wives, daughters, and mothers of the professors who elected Pro-Defense Committee's candidate Antonio Nores as rector for the final election of their husbands, sons, and fathers. Reformists believed that these women, strongly influenced by the clergy in general and the Jesuits in particular, pressed the faculty members to vote for the church's candidate. Even in comparison with the main target of the reformists--the professors--women appeared as the ultimate scapegoat for the triumph of the reaction. Women were also to blame for the Catholic university students who opposed the reform. According to the reformists, Catholic mothers had traditionally trusted Jesuits with the education of their sons, thus preparing them to reject liberal ideas. (71) For the reformists, the "old pious ladies" abhorred the young men's impetuosity, recklessness, and violent spontaneity to the point that when they saw the students marching, "they got down on their knees on the sidewalk in front of the Church of Jesus, praying out loud and crying: My Lord! Holy Mary! Here come the devils!" (72)

In contrast, Julio V. Gonzalez called the "enthusiastic manifestos, street demonstrations, protests against the social order, resistance to the authority and to public order, fraternization with the proletariat, sit-ins at the university, and taking down the statue of professor Rafael Garcia," the "heroic period." (73) Such acts were responsible for giving the Reform Movement, which began with the declaration of a strike in March and ended with the forceful seizure of the UNC in September, its impulsive and unruly character. Strikes, revolts, and the seizure of the university were the means that allowed reformists to make university and political authorities listen to their complaints and demands. This was also a sphere where students constructed and displayed a vital part of their identity. Reformists referred to this aspect of their identity as the result of an "explosion of virility" that involved the use of violence, the insolent challenge to authority, and acts of self-sacrifice and heroism. (74) In relation to the sense of identity that they derived from their agenda and institutional organization, violent and disruptive behavior allowed students to display a collective personality more visceral, belligerent, and turbulent, although not less politically driven and morally oriented. Reformists felt empowered through aggression and insubordination, but also redeemed themselves through altruistic bravery.

The strike was the first form of the reformists' insubordination. Students maintained that the general strike declared in March 1918 was the last resort, the ultimate sacrifice after peaceful petitions and earlier attempts of persuasion produced no results. When their message went unheard, students resorted to the strike as a more powerful, masculine, and effective strategy. (75) In response to the strike, the UNC authorities closed the university on April 2. Immediately after, President Yrigoyen sent Dr. Jose Nicolas Matienzo as a national inspector. Matienzo reopened the university, convinced the students to return to the classrooms, organized the elections for new rector, and left Cordoba afterwards. The electoral triumph of the reactionary Antonio Nores over reformists' candidate Dr. Enrique Martinez Paz on June 15 detonated the reformists' "explosion of virility." Students had been meeting with several of the voters and firmly believed they would support Martinez Paz. However, when neither of the candidates obtained the absolute majority of the votes, professors elected Nores in the runoffs. After hearing the electoral results--which were read aloud in the UNC meeting room--the students seized the room, violently threw out the professors, resolved a general strike, and announced the university revolution. In the face of betrayal, defeat, and disappointment with legality, reformists turned the electoral struggle into a "war."

In his analysis of student movements in China, Jeffrey Wasserstrom points to the discursive and tactic militarization of student protests. Wasserstrom draws attention to the fact that terms such as "strike," "march," and "brigade" commonly associated with student mobilizations, are martial terms that evoke images of warfare. (76) In Argentina, reformists became both selfless heroes and violent, disrespectful warriors. Julio V. Gonzalez described the men of 1918 as a "generation ready for combat," Gabriel del Mazo thought of himself as a "soldier" of the cause, and the FUC referred to the events that followed the elections as a "great battle." (77) Students destroyed the furniture, the windows, the doors, and the paintings of important members of the clergy that hung on the walls; they attempted to pull the bronze statue of university founder Bishop Fernando Trejo y Sanabria, covered its pedestal with offensive words, and hung a big sign in the main entrance with the inscription "for rent." Gonzalez affirmed that "an unstoppable, devastating human whirlwind made the campus tremble beneath its united, growing roar, in which screams, whistles, insults, and curses mingled together." (78) Reformists even attempted, unsuccessfully, to set fire to the Jesuit monastery internally connected to the University building. The violence could have been spontaneous, but the targets were not irrationally chosen. In a crusade in the name of science, culture, and education, students left the main library untouched.

On the days following June 15, election day, students' violent irreverence and disruptions continued. The reformists took to the streets, attacked churches, and vandalized both the Catholic newspaper Los Principios (owned by the Corda Frates) and the building of the University Pro-Defense Committee. The city authorities faced the reformists' radicalization by issuing two police edicts to strictly control and penalize public manifestations, violent disruptions in public places, and attacks on people and buildings. These measures, however, did not stop reformists, who believed they were playing a heroic role. In fact, as student leader Gregorio Bermann argued, "bars make one proud, if one is behind them because of a noble cause." (79) Students viewed the electoral results as a consequence of a deceptive betrayal. Violence, then, was their response to what they understood as a challenge to their honor and to university authorities' attempts at emasculation. As a result, violent insubordination had an intense masculinizing effect. This effect had a significant physical aspect since students suffered from the aggression of the police, the army, and thugs paid by university authorities, "the fists for hire." (80) Gonzalez argued that "there was violence directed toward the rebels, but as soon as the murdering arm arose, the assassins fell to the ground: the brave chests and bare virile arms are stronger than the weapons waved by cowards." (81) Furthermore, during the days after the elections, there were several duels between young students and Catholic adult men to solve their "disputes like gentlemen." (82) Duels involved a much more ritualized and consented form of violence between the two generations, a more personalized clash, and a more subjective meaning of honor.

For the students, these events had an effect of empowerment and produced a sense of courageous urgency. In a telegram to the FUA, members of the FUC affirmed that "the police sirens are heard, the infantry is arriving, and there are dozens of injured men, but no one is moving." (83) The reformists represented themselves as committed to an imperative cause that transformed them into men of heroism and self-sacrifice. They felt that "neither threats nor aggressions will make us desist, because we know that we are working for the good of the country, and every sacrifice has its price." (84) It was the identity of the plot--in this case, the epic crusade--that granted the characters their identity as combative heroes. (85) Like every heroic crusade, the Reform Movement had also its "fallen men." Reformist leader Enrique Barros was viciously attacked by two Catholic students who severely injured his skull. However, when he was "miraculously saved from the claws of death," Barros, an example of "how generous spirits, free from bias, should react," forgave his attackers. (86)

Insubordination brought students closer to the working class. The labor unions publicly supported the reformists and participated in their demonstrations. For their part, student leaders embraced the workers' demands, and in 1919, severely condemned the terrible state repression suffered by workers on strike during the "Tragic Week." (87) Reformists equated terrible working conditions and low salaries with students' appalling education and lack of rewards: both groups fought for improving their milieu (the factory and the university), their occupation (work and education), and their recompenses (salaries and culture). Furthermore, reformists believed that both students and workers shared a common state of intellectual orphanhood and repression that tightened their fraternal bonds and made them recognized they were brothers. Both groups,

  were brought together by the strength of the police's saber, which
  fell on all of their backs. The saber was used in the name of social
  order, and when they felt it fall, the students and the workers
  discovered a sudden solidarity amidst the rage. That is when they drew
  together, and the student said to the worker: we are outside the law,
  my brother. (88)

Reformists prevented Nores from assuming his post as the new rector after election day and consequently the Superior Council ordered the closure of the University. Reformists requested that President Yrigoyen intervene again, and on August 2, Dr. Telemaco Susini was designated for the mission. Susini, however, never traveled to Cordoba and on August 23, Yrigoyen appointed Public Education Minister Jose Salinas, to lead the intervention. However, at the beginning of September, Salinas had still not arrived at Cordoba. The FUC, impatient, suspected a new betrayal and decided to act. On the morning of September 9, eighty-three students seized the university. As in the case of the elections for rector, the seizure was the way in which reformists responded to the inertia of national authorities, the attack against their honor, and the loss of confidence in legal procedures. The seizure of the UNC was the ultimate act of students' insubordination during the first period of the Reform Movement.

The seizure was perfectly planned. Students entered rapidly and threw the employees out. When the police and the army, both heavily armed, besieged the university to stop the students from receiving external help, reformists showed they were "prepared like military men, since our defense plans had anticipated the enemy's maneuvering." (89) During the seizure, students attempted to perform all the characteristics of Ingenieros's "superior men" by assuming the authority roles that they claimed their professors were unable to fulfill. In a complete inversion of the standing order, students decided to reopen the university, designated themselves as professors to teach and give exams, and appointed the presidents of the law, medical, and engineering student centers, Horacio Valdes, Enrique Barros, and Ismael Bordabehere, as deans of their respective schools. (90) In fact, the tendency among students to appropriate, parody, and subvert official rhetoric, symbols, and forms of action to undermine the hegemony of the power-holders is an aspect widely shared by students in different historical contexts. (91) However, the inversion of roles was suddenly interrupted when the army entered the building. The performance ended as epically as it had started and developed. Gonzalez described the popular support and clamor that students received when being arrested by the police: "Thus the eighty-three students left the university in cars and ambulances. The presidents of the federation led them out, and they paraded through the streets of Cordoba among applause and cheers ..." (92) The reformists' plan turned out to be a complete success. Salinas traveled to Cordoba a couple of days later, and his final report was the basis of a national decree approved by President Yrigoyen on October 7. This decree outlined a series of reforms for the university system based on the demands made by the reformists: free attendance at classes, greater flexibility in examination procedures, curriculum reform to include new courses, periodic changes in appointments to professorial chairs and, most important, student participation in the university government through representatives on university councils.

Final Thoughts

Forty years after the 1918 Reform Movement, former student leader German Arciniegas reflected, "If today I were asked what the results of the movement were, I would answer: a few men." (93) Arciniegas's remark draws attention to the fascinating relation between student mobilization, identity construction, and masculinity, the object of analysis of this essay. Traditional interpretations of the Reform Movement have focused on the organization of the movement, course of events, list of demands, and ideological contents by stressing its character as a group of interest. In contrast, I analyze the reformist agenda, corporate organization, and collective action as spheres of expression and construction of a collective self-identification. This essay shows that these young, male, socially privileged students organized themselves in their search for concrete political objectives, but that this mobilization was largely informed and, more importantly, dependent on their self-understanding as a distinct social, generational, and gendered group. Furthermore, I demonstrate the instrumentality of the reformists' collective identity in relation to their goals. On the one hand, their identification with morality, science, and intellectualism supported them in their endeavors. This identification gave strength to their demands for political participation in the university government, and for more power and freedom to select and control their professors and their studies. On the other hand, when they realized that university elections, official communications with authorities, and formal written petitions were useless, reformists took on a much more aggressive identity by embodying the ideal of the heroic warrior immersed in an epic crusade.

The reformists' collective self-identification involved two interrelated meanings: that of a distinct generation with a specific historical mission, and of a particular masculinity that embodied the ideals of science, intellectualism, morality, and heroism. The two aspects are inseparable. The reformists depicted themselves as a different generation because they incarnated a distinctive masculinity and they represented themselves as a singular masculine ideal because they belonged to a different generation. Both the ideas of generation and masculinity had strong resonance with conflict and rupture. While a generational perspective implied a succession of breaks usually based on age, masculinity entailed the divergence and opposition between different groups of men, in this case, on the basis of age, social status, power, and hierarchy within the university system. In other words, the fact that the students were young men belonging to the privileged classes did not situate them outside of complex relations of power and control. Indeed, the reformists' youth, masculine ideal, and status within the university made them subordinates to the faculty and objectors to the hierarchical system they believed was oppressive. Their gender, however, put them in a position of power and privilege in relation to women in general and female students in particular, while their class differentiated them from industrial workers, with whom the students joined forces. Finally, opposite ideals of masculinity put reformists in a competitive struggle with non-reformist students.

The radicalism and effectiveness of the UNC student mobilization had significant consequences not only for the identity and politics of Argentine and Latin American students in 1918 and the 1920s, but also for the future generations that passionately embraced the ideals and demands of their predecessors. In Argentina, during the time of conservative governments in the 1930s, the Peronist government of the 1940s and 1950s, the dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s, and the neo-liberal governments of the 1990s, many of the goals achieved in 1918 suffered dramatic setbacks. This led students in these different historical moments to rally around the spirit and model of the 1918 Movement while incorporating new goals such as anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, and anti-neoliberalism as part of their agenda. From the 1920s to the present, the idea persists that the movement lives on and different generations have felt they were part of it. In this sense, the Reform has accurately appeared to university students in twentieth-century Argentina as an unfinished project that is worth fighting for.

Department of History

Bloomington, IN 47405-7103

ENDNOTES

I would like to thank Cesar Seveso, Konstantin Dierks, and Peter Stearns as well as the anonymous readers of the Journal of Social History for their valuable comments and suggestions.

1. The University remained under Jesuit control until 1767. When Carlos III expelled the order from Spanish America, Franciscans assumed its administration until 1856 when the University fell under the administration of the national government led by President Justo Jose de Urquiza. Isidoro Martinez, La Universidad de Cordoba. Sintesis historica (Cordoba, 1959), 5-10; Richard Walter, Student Politics in Argentina: The University Reform and Its Effects, 1918-1964 (New York, 1968), 3-4; Manuel Rio, "Universidad Nacional de Cordoba. Apuntes Historicos," in Censo General de Educacion levantado el 23 de mayo de 1909, Tomo III (Buenos Aires, 1910), 517-535.

2. Gabriel del Mazo, La Reforma Universitaria, Tomo I (Buenos Aires, 1926), 8-9.

3. Carlos Tunnermann, Sesenta Anos de la Reforma Universitaria de Cordoba, 1918-1978 (San Jose, 1978); Mark J. Van Aken, "University Reform before Cordoba," Hispanic American Historical Review 51, no. 3 (1971): 447-62; Walter, Student Politics in Argentina, "The Intellectual Background of the 1918 University Reform in Argentina," Hispanic American Historical Review 49, no. 2 (1969): 233-53; Americo Schvartzman and Maria Fernanda Stang, Reforma Universitaria de 1918: La Revolucion de las Conciencias (Concepcion del Uruguay, 1998); Renate Marsiske, Movimientos Estudiantes en America Latina: Argentina, Peru, Cuba y Mexico, 1918-1929 (Mexico, 1989); Alberto Ciria and Horacio Sanguinetti, Los Reformistas (Buenos Aires, 1968), La Reforma Universitaria, 1918-1983 (Buenos Aires, 1983); Juan Carlos Portantiero, Estudiantes y politica en America Latina: El proceso de la Reforma Universitaria, 1918-1938 (Mexico, 1978); Maria Caldelari and Patricia Funes, Escenas Reformistas: La Reforma Universitaria, 1918-1930 (Buenos Aires, 1997); Nestor Kohan, Deodoro Roca: El Hereje (Buenos Aires, 1999). In this group I do not include reformists such as Gabriel del Mazo and Julio V. Gonzalez, who would eventually become the "official historians" of the Reform Movement.

4. Julio V. Gonzalez, Principios y Fundamentos de la Reforma Universitaria (Santa Fe, 1930), 15-16.

5. There are several chronologies of the Reform Movement. In 1930 the reformist UBA student Julio V. Gonzalez distinguished among the heroic period (1918-1923) characterized by student protest and upheaval; the period of consolidation of the reform measures (1923-1928); and the period of construction in which new reforms that improved the university needed to be implemented (1928-). In 1968, historians Alberto Ciria and Horacio Sanguinetti, and Richard Walter distinguished among different stages based on national politics: the Reform Movement during the Union Civica Radical governments (1918-1930), the Movement after the first coup d'etat and during the conservative governments (1930-1943), the Movement under Juan D. Peron (1943-1955), and the Movement after the Revolucion Libertadora and during the years of desarrollismo (1955-1966). Gonzalez, Principios y Fundamentos de la Reforma Universitaria, 18-22; Ciria and Sanguinetti, Los reformistas; Schvartzman and Stang, Reforma Universitaria de 1918, 63-78; Walter, Student Politics in Argentina, 3-21.

6. John Tosh, "What Should Historians do with Masculinity? Reflections on Nineteenth-century Britain," History Workshop Journal 38 (1994): 184, 194.

7. Denis-Constant Martin, "The Choices of Identity" Social Identities 1, no. 1 (1995).

8. Stuart Hall, "Introduction: Who Needs Identity?" in Stuart Hall and Paul Du Gay, eds., Questions of Cultural Identities (London: 1996), 4-5.

9. Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper, "Beyond 'identity'," Theory and Society 29, no. 1 (2000): 15.

10. R. W. Connell, Masculinities (Los Angeles, 1995), 37, 77-78; "The Social Organization of Masculinity," in Stephen Whitehead and Frank Barret, eds., The Masculinities Reader (Cambridge, 2001), 38.

11. Doug McAdam, Sydney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly, Dynamics of Contention (Cambridge, 2001), 56.

12. Harry Brod, "Some Thoughts on Some Histories of Some Masculinities: Jews and Other Others," in Harry Brod and Michel Kaufman, eds., Theorizing Masculinities (London, 1994), 89.

13. Van Aken, "University Reform before Cordoba," 450-459; Walter, Student Politics in Argentina, 29; Ciria and Sanguinetti, Los reformistas, 23.

14. "Memorial del Centro de Estudiantes de Ciencias Medicas referente de la organizacion y funcionamiento de la Escuela de Medicina de Cordoba. Cordoba, Diciembre 21, 1917," in La Reforma Universitaria en la Universidad de Cordoba, en la Universidad de Buenos Aires, Ano 1918 (Buenos Aires, 1919), 17-46.

15. Renate Marsiske, "Clases medias, universidades y movimientos estudiantiles en America Latina (1900-1930) in Renate Marsiske, ed., Movimientos estudiantiles en la historia de America Latina, Tomo 1, 142-157; Walter, Student Politics in Argentina, 58. In the 1920s, some leftist thinkers characterized the students as members of the petite bourgeoisie, while emphasizing their reformist rather than revolutionary character. Paulino Gonzalez Alberdi, "La Reforma Universitaria," Revista de Filosofia, Cultura, Ciencias y Educacion, Ano XIV, no. 3 (May 1928): 255-65.

16. Luis Alberto Romero, Breve historia contemporanea de Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1997), 15-33.

17. Gregorio Bermann, Juventud de America (Mexico, 1946), 98; Alberto Mendioroz, "Discurso en nombre de la Federacion Universitaria de La Plata," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 3, 22-3.

18. This was also a context of increasing middle-class mobilization. The 1912 approval of the Saenz Pena electoral law--which extended the secret and obligatory vote to all males over 18 years of age--was understood as a result of political pressure from the middle classes. In addition, the ascendancy of the Radical Party, generally identified with the middle sectors, and the electoral triumph of its candidate Hipolito Yrigoyen in the presidential elections of 1916 were also related to middle-class organization and protest.

19. Jacinto Armando and Florencio Sanguinetti were middle-class students while Pedro Verde Tello and Nicolas Romano were immigrants. Julio V. Gonzalez, Carlos Sanchez Viamonte, Deodoro Roca, and Agustin de Vedia belonged to traditional families. Ciria and Sanguinetti, Los reformistas, 24.

20. Dardo Cuneo, La reforma universitaria (Caracas, 1976), xii.

21. Mark Roseman, "Introduction: Generation Conflict and German History," in Mark Roseman, ed., Generations in Conflict: Youth Revolt and Generation Formation in Germany, 1770-1968 (Cambridge, 1995), 21.

22. Following the line of thought of Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset, Gonzalez interpreted Argentina's history as a succession of generations that divorced themselves from their predecessors and embarked upon different historical missions for the construction of a modern nation. These generations included the independence generation of 1810, the liberals of 1837, the constitutionalists of 1853, the centralization generation of 1880, and the reconstruction generation of 1918. Gonzalez, Principios y Fundamentos de la Reforma Universitaria, 9; La reforma universitaria, Tomo 1 (Buenos Aires, 1927), 35-6.

23. Julio V. Gonzalez, Significacion social de la Reforma Universitaria (Buenos Aires, 1924), 11.

24. "El Comite Pro-Reforma Universitaria de Cordoba, declara la huelga general por tiempo indeterminado, Marzo 13, 1918. Manifiesto a la juventud argentina, Marzo 15, 1918," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 2, 17.

25. Deodoro Roca, "La revolucion de las conciencias. Cordoba 1918," in Kohan, Deodoro Roca, 97.

26. Brubaker and Cooper, "Beyond 'identity'," 6-7; Alan Petersen, "Research on Men and Masculinities: Some Implications of Recent Theory for Future Work," in Men and Masculinities 6, no. 1 (2003): 62.

27. Quoted in Florentino V. Sanguinetti, "Homenaje a Julio V. Gonzalez. El Reformista," Revista de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales, Ano III, No. 3-4 (1956-57), 79. (Emphasis mine).

28. Walter, "The Intellectual Background of the 1918 University Reform in Argentina," 233-253.

29. An interesting example is Socialist Congressman Juan B. Justo's speech to the National Chamber of Deputies after a trip to the UNC in 1918. In his speech, Justo criticizes the UNC professors, describes their anti-modern, anti-secular, and obscurantist academic tendencies, and strongly supports the reformists' demands. Partido Socialista, La Reforma Universitaria y el Partido Socialista (Buenos Aires, 1945), 12-13.

30. However, the UNC largely ignored the "Ley Avellaneda" and applied an internal statute from 1879 for its internal organization. Ciria and Sanguinetti, La Reforma Universitaria 1918-1983, Tomo 1, 23.

31. Walter, Student Politics in Argentina, 7; "Reformas al Estatuto Universitario," Revista de Filosofia, Cultura, Ciencias y Educacion, Ano IV, no. VI, 1918, 487-488.

32. Argentine women had intervened in informal politics since the nineteenth century. The Women's Movement could be considered, in this regard, a significant example. However, women formally entered the arena of "high politics" when they were granted the right to vote in 1947 during the government of Juan D. Peron. Marifran Carlson, Feminismo!: The Woman Movement in Argentina from Its Beginning to Eva Peron (Chicago, 1988), 189.

33. "Memorial de la Federacion Universitaria al Presidente de la Republica, pidiendo y fundamentando una segunda intervencion a la Universidad, Julio 17 de 1918;" "Actas de la Federacion Universitaria Argentina que dan cuenta de los sucesos del mes de junio en la Universidad de Cordoba y de la concertacion nacional del movimiento de los estudiantes, Acta No 5: Sesion ordinaria del 6 de junio de 1918," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 2, 59, 130.

34. Eduardo Bullrich, "Discursos en la gran asamblea de la Federacion Universitaria de Buenos Aires de solidaridad con el movimiento de los estudiantes de Cordoba, en la que se proclamo la fundacion de la Federacion Universitaria Argentina. 11 de abril de 1918. Del Senor Eduardo J. Bullrich, miembro de la junta ejecutive de la federacion universitaria de Buenos Aires," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 2, 111.

35. Gonzalez, Significacion social de la Reforma Universitaria, 47.

36. Gonzalez, Principios y Fundamentos de la Reforma Universitaria, 15.

37. Connell, "The Social Organization of Masculinity," 38.

38. Raul Orgaz, "Las generaciones historicas," Revista de Filosofia, Cultura, Ciencias y Educacion, Ano XI, no. 4, July 1925, 93.

39. Hall, "Introduction: Who Needs 'Identity'?," 4-5. (Emphasis in the original.)

40. "La juventud argentina de Cordoba a los hombre libres de Sud America. Manifiesto, 1918," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 2, 7-8; Alfredo Brandan Caraffa, "Discurso en nombre de la Federacion Universitaria de Cordoba;" Hiram Pozzo, "Formacion del profesorado. La docencia libre. La periodicidad de catedra," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 3, 30-31, 74-75; "El Comite estudiantil Pro-Reforma Universitaria pide la intervencion del Poder Ejecutivo Nacional en la Universidad;" Horacio Valdes, "Discursos en la gran asamblea de la Federacion Universitaria de Buenos Aires de solidaridad con el movimiento de los estudiantes de Cordoba, en la que se proclamo la fundacion de la Federacion Universitaria Argentina. 11 de abril de 1918. Del Senor Horacio Valdes, delegado de la federacion universitaria de Cordoba," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 2, 40, 101-102.

41. Partido Socialista, La Reforma Universitaria y el Partido Socialista, 12-13.

42. Valdes, "Discursos en la gran asamblea de la Federacion Universitaria de Buenos Aires de solidaridad con el movimiento de los estudiantes de Cordoba, en la que se proclamo la fundacion de la Federacion Universitaria Argentina. 11 de abril de 1918. Del Senor Horacio Valdes, delegado de la federacion universitaria de Cordoba," 98.

43. Osvaldo Loudet, "Discurso del Presidente de la Federacion Universitaria Argentina y Presidente del Congreso," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 3, 17; Mendioroz, "Discurso en nombre de la Federacion Universitaria de La Plata," 23; Brandan Caraffa, "Discurso en nombre de la Federacion Universitaria de Cordoba," 29-30.

44. Emilio Biagosch, "La Universidad y la democracia," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 3, 127.

45. "La juventud argentina de Cordoba a los hombre libres de Sud America. Manifiesto, 1918," 10, 15.

46. Pozzo, "Formacion del profesorado. La docencia libre. La periodicidad de catedra," 81-82; "Nuevo Manifiesto. Marzo 31 de 1918;" Gregorio Bermann, "Discursos en la gran asamblea de la Federacion Universitaria de Buenos Aires de solidaridad con el movimiento de los estudiantes de Cordoba, en la que se proclamo la fundacion de la Federacion Universitaria Argentina. 11 de abril de 1918. Del Senor Gregorio Bermann, enviado especial de la federacion universitaria de Buenos Aires a Cordoba;" Deodoro Roca, "La nueva generacion argentina," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 2, 20, 91, 184.

47. "Memorial de la Federacion Universitaria al Presidente de la Republica pidiendo y fundamentando una segunda intervencion a la Universidad, Julio 17, 1918," 57-59.

48. "La juventud argentina de Cordoba a los hombre libres de Sud America. Manifiesto, 1918," 8-10.

49. In my examination of El hombre mediocre I follow Richard J. Walter's analysis of Ingenieros' work. Walter, "The Intellectual Background of the 1918 University Reform in Argentina," 241-246.

50. Jose Ingenieros, "Inquietud, rebeldia, perfeccion," Revista de Filosofia, Cultura, Ciencias y Educacion, Ano VII, no 6, November 1921, 443-444.

51. Loudet, "Discurso del Presidente de la Federacion Universitaria Argentina y Presidente del Congreso," 19. (Emphasis in the original.)

52. Walter Elena, "Bajo el cielo de Cordoba," Themis. Organo del Centro de Estudiantes de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales, Ano XI, no. 70 (August 1918), 105.

53. "La juventud argentina de Cordoba a los hombre libres de Sud America. Manifiesto, 1918," 10; Gabriel del Mazo, "Del Senor Gabriel del Mazo en representacion del Ateneo de Estudiantes Universitarios," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 1, 108.

54. Walter, Student Politics in Argentina, 6.

55. Guillermo Watson, "Discursos en la gran asamblea de la Federacion Universitaria de Buenos Aires de solidaridad con el movimiento de los estudiantes de Cordoba, en la que se proclamo la fundacion de la Federacion Universitaria Argentina. 11 de abril de 1918. Del Senor Guillermo Watson, presidente de la federacion universitaria de Buenos Aires," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 2, 89.

56. Between June and August 1918, the FUC coordinated public demonstrations that mobilized 9,000 and 15,000 people on two different occasions. These protests benefited from the presence of important political national figures such as socialist leaders Alfredo Palacios and Mario Bravo. Julio V. Gonzalez, "La revolucion universitaria de Cordoba en 1918," Revista de Filosofia, Cultura, Ciencias y Educacion, Ano VIII, no. 1, (January 1922), 40, 45-46, 57-64.

57. By 1917, both the Federation and the Corda Frates began an active campaign to expand and reaffirm the teaching of religion in primary, secondary, and higher education. The campaign was an attempt to ensure that educational contents were not offensive to Catholic ideas, and to place more Catholic teachers and professors in key educational posts. Reformists referred to this campaign as the "plan of peaceful penetration." "Antecedentes sobre los sucesos en la Universidad de Cordoba," Revista de Filosofia, Cultura, Ciencias y Educacion, Ano IV, no. IV (July 1918), 135-47.

58. "Antecedentes sobre los sucesos en la Universidad de Cordoba," 135-147.

59. Gonzalez, Significacion Social de la Reforma Universitoria, 23.

60. Gonzalez, "La revolucion universitaria de Cordoba en 1918," 37.

61. "Actas de la Federacion Universitaria Argentina. Acta No 8. Sesion extraordinaria del 18 de junio de 1918," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 2, 145.

62. Elena, "Bajo el cielo de Cordoba," 98.

63. In addition to the main points of the reformist agenda, delegates also presented projects related to free education, financial aid for sick students, the teaching of social medicine, the creation of new universities and the nationalization of existing ones, and the establishment of new professional schools. "Algunos votos presentados al Congreso y sus fundamentos," "Votos aprobados por el Congreso," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 3, 71-211.

64. Gonzalez, "La revolucion universitaria de Cordoba en 1918," 54.

65. Andrew Kirkendall, Class Mates: Male Student Culture and the Making of a Political Class in Nineteenth-Century Brazil (Lincoln, 2002), 13.

66. Elena, "Bajo el cielo de Cordoba," 102.

67. Gabriel del Mazo, Estudiantes y gobierno universitario (Buenos Aires, 1955), 67-70; Julio V. Gonzalez, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 1 (Buenos Aires, 1927), 151-159; Biagosch, "La Universidad y la democracia," 125-126; Gabriel Del Mazo y Dante Ardigo, "El concepto de gratuidad en la ensenanza superior," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 3, 135-136.

68. Gonzalez, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 1, 154.

69. Carlson, Feminismo!, 83

70. Loudet, "Discurso del Presidente de la Federacion Universitaria Argentina y Presidente del Congreso," 20.

71. Julio Barreda Lynch, "La Corda Frates en la Universidad de Cordoba;" Emilio Dupont, "Jesuitismo," Revista de Filosofia, Cultura, Ciencias y Educacion, Ano IV, no. IV (July 1918), 136, 144.

72. Gonzalez, "La revolucion universitaria de Cordoba en 1918," 62.

73. Gonzalez, Principios y fundamentos de la reforma universitaria, 18.

74. Humberto Gambino, "Discurso en nombre de la Federacion Universitaria de Santa Fe," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 3, 34.

75. "El Comite Pro-Reforma Universitaria de Cordoba declara la huelga general por tiempo indeterminado," 17.

76. Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Student Protests in Twentieth-Century China: The View from Shanghai (Stanford, 1991), 2.

77. Gonzalez, Principios y fundamentos de la Reforma Universitaria, 16; "Del Senor Gabriel del Mazo en representacion del Ateneo de Estudiantes Universitarios;" "Sesion extraordinaria del 16 de junio de 1918," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 2, 106, 141.

78. Gonzalez, "La revolucion universitaria de Cordoba en 1918," 28-30; La Prensa, Junio 15 1918, La Nacion, Junio 16 y 17 1918, "Antecedentes sobre los sucesos de la Universidad de Cordoba," 147-152.

79. Bermann, Juventud de America, 89; Gonzalez, "La revolucion universitaria de Cordoba en 1918," 38-40.

80. "Sesion extraordinaria del 16 de junio de 1918," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 2, 140.

81. Gonzalez, "La revolucion universitaria de Cordoba en 1918," 30.

82. Idem., 47.

83. "Sesion extraordinaria del 18 de junio de 1918," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 2, 146.

84. "Sesion extraordinaria del 16 de junio de 1918," 141.

85. Martin, "The Choices of Identity".

86. Gonzalez, Significacion Social de la Reforma Universitaria, 25.

87. Ibid., 17; Gonzalez, "La revolucion universitaria de Cordoba en 1918," 35, 61. Thinkers from the Left who characterized the Reform Movement as a bourgeois movement strongly questioned students' commitment with the workers' cause. Even supporters of the Reform such as Anibal Ponce argued that the students "doubtlessly enjoyed fraternizing with workers, participating in their strikes, collaborating from the pages of the vanguard. However, this student did not view himself as a proletarian: there were still remains of his old education, and although he still spoke with leftist words, he knew very well that he was educated. This is why the worker considered him to be a friend, but not a hope ..." Anibal Ponce; "Prologo," Gonzalez, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 1, 3; Paulino Gonzalez Alberdi, "La reforma universitaria."

88. Gonzalez, Significacion Social de la Reforma Universitaria, 16.

89. Gonzalez, "La revolucion universitaria de Cordoba en 1918," 69.

90. "Toma de la Universidad por los estudiantes. 9 de septiembre de 1918. Comunicacion del vicerrector de la Universidad al ministro de instruccion publica acerca de la toma de la universidad por los estudiantes, transcribiendo el decreto correspondiente de la Federacion Universitaria," in del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 2, 67-68.

91. Wasserstrom, Student Protests in Twentieth-Century China, 285, 291.

92. Gonzalez, "La revolucion universitaria de Cordoba en 1918," 69.

93. German Arciniegas, "Hace cuarenta anos," in Gabriel del Mazo, La reforma universitaria, Tomo 1 (Lima, 1967), xiii.

By Natalia Milanesio

Indiana University, Bloomington