“Estas cosas parecen triviales; pero son de más importancia de lo que se cree: ” Fashion, Gender, and Modernity in Puerto Rican Periodicals, 1900-1930

Abstract

This dissertation examines the representations of modern, gendered subjectivities in early 20th century Puerto Rico, a society in transition between colonial powers. It studies how Puerto Ricans discussed conceptions of modern femininity and modern masculinity – and their discontents – through fashion (as dress and behavior) texts and images. The argument is that Puerto Ricans participated in what it is called here “transnational imagined interpretive communities” on fashion, appropriating transnational discourses on fashionability and modernity to construct modern gendered subjectivities, while, at the same time, keeping a tense relationship with the unfolding processes of a paradoxical and bewildering “colonial modernity.” The dissertation also shows how fashion served as a dual device which paradoxically promoted modern values – validating notions of the modern subject – while, at the same time, allowed conservative views on gender to be expressed as criticism of those modern values. Thus, the investigation demonstrates Puerto Ricans ambivalence toward the processes and changes surrounding them, their fascination with, and fears of the expected results. This ambivalence pushed Puerto Rican modern women and men to walk a tightrope in fashion matters, keeping a balancing act between presenting a modern body and subjectivity and avoiding the gloomy depths of fashion: for women, looking masculine or appearing licentious; for men, giving the impression of effeminacy.

This project takes distance from still prevalent approaches in Puerto Rican historiography that privilege politics, the economy, and the “social.” The representation of early 20th century Puerto Rico derived from that kind of historiographical approaches is of a society under the spell of the political-economic preoccupations of intellectuals and political leaders, their efforts to solve the island’s political status, or their quest for an elusive national identity, on one side, or of a society of generalized poverty and scarcity, on the other. By using fashion as a lens into the representational struggles about modernity and its effects on gender, this dissertation shows that Puerto Ricans daily lives were not completely dominated by those concerns. Also, this dissertation not only brings fashion as a new topic to the table but takes a fresh look at old sources. By examining advertising in conjunction with articles and letters published in the periodicals it reveals a more complex picture of those sources. In addition, this dissertation focuses on a poorly studied social strata in Puerto Rican historiography: the middle class. Fashion, in part, represented their aspirations to modernity. Moving beyond a straightforward discussion of this understudied aspect of Puerto Rican culture, it seeks to show how Puerto Ricans on the island were not passive colonial subjects but active agents who appropriated mainstream fashion discourses to make sense of their transitional world, to construct modern subjectivities in a colonial context, and, in many instances, to assume control over their own representations.

As an interdisciplinary project, it draws upon a wide range of literature from history, fashion studies, gender studies, sociology, consumer culture, and advertising studies. The sources are a variegated range of Puerto Rican periodicals of diverse political inclinations, editorial lines, and circulation. The analysis is done using discourse and textual analysis insights.

This dissertation seeks to make an impact on how scholars think about daily life in early 20th century Puerto Rico, beyond traditional economic and political approaches, refining definitions of modernity on the island along the way. Being a study on colonial subjects, it will serve as a framework to examine other colonial contexts and their relationships with constructions of modernity.