Pasiones prohibidas: lectoras, consumo y periodismo en la Argentina de 1880

Abstract

Around 1875 several journalistic projects began to develop in Argentina which addressed specifically to women. Publications such as La Ondina del Plata (1875-1880), La Alborada del Plata (1877-1878 and 1880), and El Álbum del Hogar (1878- 1880 and 1886-1887) made up a circuit of magazines in which literature, moral and political essays, fashion texts and images, as well as reviews of social events intertwined. These periodicals sought to seduce and lecture an emerging sector of the reading public as women, alternating traditional discourses with slogans and representations related to an expanding consumer market. This paper analyzes how these literary women magazines developed different strategies of negotiation regarding the growth of women's consumption, using at the same time their commercial appeal and assuming a tutorial role against the alleged dangers and temptations that stalked women in modern society.