How successful were the trade unions and political organisations of Latin American workers in this period? To what extent did they succeed in obtaining their demands, or could the elite and state effectively divide, co-opt, or repress them? Were popular demonstrations more effective than strikes? Looking at working-class lives more generally, how much power did workers have to organise their own communities? How significant were factors such as ethnicity, nationality and gender? There is now a mass of literature on this topic, and this is a small selection.
G.R. Andrews, ‘Black Workers in the Export Years: Latin America, 1880-1930’, International Labor and Working Class History 51 (1997), 7-29
C. Bergquist, Labor in Latin America [this contains chapters on Argentina and Chile specifically]
M.M. Hall & H.A. Spalding, 'Urban Labour Movements', in Bethell (ed.), CHLA, V, or Bethell (ed.), Latin America: economy and society, 1870-1930, pp. 183-224 [the chapter by Scobie on urbanisation in these volumes also provides good background]
R. Pineo & J.A. Baer (eds.), Cities of Hope: people, protests, and progress in urbanising Latin America
H.A. Spalding, Organized Labor in Latin America, esp. chaps. 1, 2, 4
E. Viotti da Costa, 'Experience versus structures: new tendencies in the history of labor and the working class in Latin America' [in SJSL offprint collection, #16545]
*J. Adelman (ed.), Essays in Argentine Labour History, 1870-1930
J. Adelman, `Socialism and Democracy in Argentina in the Age of the Second International', HAHR 72 (1992), 211-238
J.L. Horowitz, `Argentina's Failed General Strike of 1921', HAHR 75 (1995), 57-80
*R.P. Korzeniewicz, 'Labor Unrest in Argentina, 1887-1907', LARR 24:3 (1989), 71-98
R. Munck, ‘Mutual Benefit Societies in Argentina: workers, nationality, social security, and trade unionism’, JLAS 30 (1998), 573-590
G.R. Andrews, 'Black and White Workers: São Paulo, Brazil, 1898-1928', HAHR 68 (1988), 491-524
S.L. Maram, 'Labour and the Left in Brazil, 1890-1921: a movement aborted', HAHR 57 (1977), 254-272
T. Meade, '"Living Worse and Costing More": resistance and riot in Rio de Janeiro, 1890-1917', JLAS 21 (1989), 241-266
J.D. Needell, 'The Revolta contra vacina of 1904: the revolt against "modernisation" in Belle-Epoque Rio de Janeiro', HAHR 67 (1987), 233-270
J. Wolfe, 'Anarchist Ideology, Worker Practice: the 1917 general strike and the formation of São Paulo's working class', HAHR 71 (1991), 809-846
*P. de Shazo, 'The Valparaiso Maritime Strike of 1903 and the Development of a Revolutionary Labour Movement in Chile', JLAS 11 (1979), 145-168
P. de Shazo, Urban Workers and Labor Unions in Chile, 1902-1927
J. Roddick, 'The Failure of Populism in Chile: the labour movement and politics before World War I', Boletin de Estudios Latinoamericanos 31 (1981), 61-90
J.C. Brown, `Foreign and Native-Born Workers in Porfirian Mexico', AHR 98 (1993), 786-818
M.J. Gonzales, `United States Copper Companies, the State, and Labour Conflict in Mexico, 1900-1910', JLAS 26 (1994), 651-682
M.J. Gonzales, ‘US Copper Companies, the Mine Workers’ Movement, and the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920’, HAHR 76 (1996), 503-534
*A. Knight, 'The Working Class and the Mexican Revolution, c. 1900-1920', JLAS 16 (1984), 51-79
B. Carr, ‘Mill Occupations and Soviets: the mobilisation of sugar workers in Cuba, 1917-1933’, JLAS 28 (1996), 129-158
B. Carr, ‘Identity, Class and Nation: black immigrant workers, Cuban communism and the sugar industry, 1925-1934’, HAHR 78 (1998), 83-116
T.F. O’Brien, ‘The Revolutionary Mission: American enterprise in Cuba’, AHR 98 (1993), 765-785