The Streetcar in the Urban Imaginary of Latin America

Abstract

The electric streetcar was a significant marker of modernity in Latin America, but its symbolic power rested as much in its ability to establish a presence in urban popular culture as it did in its contribution to technological change. By using the concept of the “urban imaginary” we can reveal the multifaceted and shifting role of the streetcar as a symbol of progress and a site of danger, destruction, and death in the public mind. In newspapers, comics, songs, poems, stories, and movies, the masses imagined the streetcar as central to the daily life of the city and used it to make meaning out of the chaos of the rapidly evolving modern city. Themes explored include the ordering of bodies, labor conflict, violence, the spectacle city, and the afterlife of the streetcar.