ARGENTINA Bicentennial

Social climbing, general participation and equality before the law for all the inhabitants of Argentina started to gradually become manifest as rights. Significant changes were managed in all the aspects of everyday life as the first hundredth-anniversary of the Revolution took place on May 25, 1910.

This happening was celebrated with pomp and circumstance. Several celebrities were invited and all kind of events were organized, such as civil and religious ceremonies, military parades, congresses, banquets and galas, to name a few.

For the celebrations, the President of Chile, the Vice President of Peru, Princess Isabel de Borbón (in representation of Alfonso XIII, King of Spain), as well as representatives from Germany, Spain, Paraguay, Japan and the United States, arrived in the country. Poets and men of letters, professional travelers and special guests who were news in that exceptional year also visited our motherland.

As the world was waiting for a catastrophe due to Halley’s Comet’s approach to Earth, the porteños were getting ready for a unique event they wished to show to the whole world: the International Centennial Exhibition. By 1908, the Colón Theater had already been inaugurated and don Carlos Thays had been appointed for the task of landscaping the gardens of Palermo.

The exhibitions that were part of this show were divided by theme: fine arts, agriculture, hygiene, industry and railways, and they were settled all around the Federal District. They were unfolded along Alvear and Mayo Avenues, as well as in new neighborhoods whose beauty succeeded in luring the celebrating crowds.

In 1910, Argentina already had 6 million dwellers all throughout its territory and very soon the universal and mandatory vote law would be passed. Later on, women would also be entitled to this right, something completely outrageous for those days.

The Martín Fierro had already been consecrated as the national book and very soon the tango would come out of the suburbs with the help of Carlos Gardel, and revive in all the homes in the country. The cultural and literary avant-garde movements, in addition to the radio and the modernist and positivist ideas, would be part of the new century that had already begun.

Parisian, modern and embellished by the Belle Époque, enriched Argentina would become overt mainly in Buenos Aires and incorporate tastes and customs from Old Europe. However, it would not ignore that class differences or sociopolitical movements were real all throughout the territory. These views would then become part of the country’s common sense.

The massive immigration incorporated foreigners to the new population of Argentina, thus contributing to the growth, development and modernization of the country.