Máximo Carrasco - or working class life en Lima, 1900-1930

Abstract

This essay on the life of the , Lima poor in the first decades of the twentieth century is an effort to deal with social history in a more "human" fashion. While based largely on the statistical analysis of raw social data it attempts to reflect the general patterns of urban working class existence between 1900 and 1930 by constructing a semifictional composit biography of the life of what might be called a typical member of Lima's popular masses. The description of the life of one representative working class man, Maximo Carrasco, is intended to reveal what kinds of individuals made up the Lima working classes and how they lived.