An Imported Modernization. Consumption of Foreign Goods in Valle del Cauca (1850-1900)

Abstract

This article explains the relationship that took place between the consumption of imported articles and the meanings that local consumers gave them. It focuses on the meanings of modernization, hygiene and social distinction in the Valle del Cauca region during the second half of the nineteenth century. Finally, it is shown that the long journey that merchandise made between European and North American ports, and Valle del Cauca, where different means of transport and commercial mechanisms were combined, was considered a modern practice that merchants carried out. However, the consumption of imports did not represent a complete entrance into modernity, but the appearance of various forms of modernization in different fields, levels and with different forms of affectation in each of the social groups. In short, this is an attempt to write a cultural and economic history about one of the least known facets of international trade of the nineteenth century, within a field of research that currently makes its way: the history of consumption.