General Abelardo L. Rodriguez and the Making of Modern Mexico, 1920-1967
FAIN: FB-53780-08
Jurgen Buchenau
University of North Carolina, Charlotte (Charlotte, NC 28223-0001)
I am seeking an NEH Fellowship to write a book on General Abelardo L. Rodriguez as a case study of the emergence of a new national bourgeoisie during and after the Mexican Revolution (1910-1940). Rodriguez was president from 1932 to 1934 and one of the individuals who most benefited personally from the revolution. Virtually penniless at the outset, he rapidly rose through the ranks in the army. He became a millionaire by seizing the lucrative business in prostitution and gambling that characterized the Mexican border state of Baja California in the 1920s, and then added to his wealth by investing in the growing entertainment industry. Rodriguez epitomized the corrupt revolutionary elite depicted in Carlos Fuentes's novel, The Death of Artemio Cruz; a group that had forgotten its earlier zeal for improving the living conditions of workers and peasants in favor of an all-absorbing obsession with personal gain.