Neighborhood management against the industrial pretence. Hygiene and Development Commissions in a sugar town of Tucumán, Santa Ana during the first decades of the 20th century

Abstract

The article studies neighborhood commissions with municipal functions in a town in Tucumán developed to the influence of sugar production. At the beginning of the 20th century, municipal affairs in most of the interior towns of the province were commissioned to the Hygiene and Development Commissions appointed by the governor, since municipal were not recognized if not exceptionally. In the vicinity of the village Santa Ana, located in the south of the province, was built one of the largest sugar mills in Argentina at the end of the 19th century. The neighbors from that locality impelled the rol of the village like civic and commercial center head of the district, but the pretence of the industrialist to self-supply his factory, advancing on agrarian property, tended to disregard the legitimacy of civic space. In that context, the Hygiene and Development Commission of Santa Ana channeled part of the demands against the overwhelming presence of the mill, until the appointment of related commissioners to the sugar company conflicted its operation and weakened the position of the village. Ever in those conditions, the local management body obtained state support to protect the neighborhood in the territory.