part 1 | part 2
by
Nora Olivia Sedeño Torres
Director of the Historic Archive of the Oaxaca Municipality.
The Manuel R. Palacios Historic Archive of the City of Oaxaca has now its very own building. It now has a splendidly edited general guide of its documents and a much better organization. The catalog “Rescuing the city's image through its arts and crafts” is one more in a long line of achievements. It was made in 2003 along with ADABI Mexico. Now a CD-ROM will be made with the support of the City’s Authorities. This CD will include beautiful 19th and 20th Century photographs of people that serviced the community and now allow us to revisit our recent past. This photo catalog is not only an historical record, but also a pleasant visual journey for all the people of Oaxaca.
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| Policeman:
Tiburcio López, 1919 Click on image for a full view. |
The goal of this project was to have a photographic record of the old time water carriers, merchants, chauffeurs, shoeshine boys and prostitutes. The project has collected 7,216 images. About 10% of them show some deterioration. Digital scanning has helped to preserve and extend the life of these photos.
All photos include descriptions of the trade, workplace and guild (or even the name of the brothel) along with the names of the people depicted in them, which have been fed into a database for research.
None of these trades have disappeared in the 21st Century; water carriers have substituted the old clay pitchers for plastic ones, this trade has not vanished, but evolved. The same goes for shoeshine boys, merchants, chauffeurs and prostitutes who are all still with us.
The photographs were taken by the city’s authorities to keep a record of the people working in these trades in the city of Oaxaca.
All
the records are quite interesting, yet the one about prostitution
is one of most appealing. It is the biggest archive, ranging
from 1890 to 1957. The authorities kept a strict control of
the business, recording the names of every house, owner and
girl that worked in them, including the dates in which they
started working and when they left town, their nationality,
age and complete physical description.
Prostitutes:
Emilia Reyes, 1895 > |
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Although authorities tried to avoid clandestine prostitution, there are some independent prostitutes portrayed in the archive.
part 1 | part 2