Essay: How background influenced descriptions of 19th & 20th century Argentina

In this Essay, I’m going to write about how the national, and maybe social background influenced certain people’s description on the 19th and 20th century Argentina. This writing is mainly based on personal thoughts and observations.
The source readings, which I’m refering to, are mostly the personal opinions of mainly European people, from different social classes. The “General Introduction” titled reading gives us a proper and short overview on the economy, politics and society of Argentina on the turning of the century. With this and the writing style of the various writers, who noted down their personal experiences, we can make certain guesses and interpretations about their personal opinions on the country, and how their backgrounds influenced it.
Let us start with the Chilen born, United States professor’s, James R. Scobie’s work. As a proper Historian, Scobie tries to deliver his observations without any sensible personal opinion. He mostly writes about Argentinas stabilisation and progression. He reflects on how Argentina brought in labourers from Europe for the cheap working fees, and how they opened towards global trading mostly in the meat market. This could show some parallelities with the United States history, after the 1850s, when a tremendous amount of European people left their home for the hope of the better living. The fact, that our author was a Unites States citizen, might support this speculation.
Our second writer is an English Lady, Florence Dixie, who was a true pioneer of her own Age. It was certainly not common for ladies of that era to write books, not mentioning making adventurous trips to a dire and distant part of the world. Lady Dixie’s reviews are including the sweet observations of a true Lady in a wild, inhabitant world. You can feel the elegancy and precision on the writing, what indicates the origin of the writer, while it stays a proper academic summary of an other, less known culture. However, I must note one of my observation on the written text: in of the last pages of the writing, there is a part, where she compares the magnificent scenery of the Cordilleras of the Andes to “Gothic spires”. This shows us, that our writer is strongly related to or even living in Europe. This is a trivial thing, since we know our writer is English. Although, this example shows us, that we only can relate to things, that we are familiar with. And with a European background, she referred to some European building style.
Our third writer is a french journalist, Jules Huret. It is known from the readings, that Argentina was thought as the most Europeanised country in Latin America, and was commonly called as “The Paris of the South”. It is hard to cope with any comparison to our beloved things, and without any negative thoughts and voice, we can state the fact, that Paris for a French person is Sacrosanct (sacred). Maybe this was the reason behind Hurets negative attitude towards the country. Huret constantly paints a negative picture on Buenos Aires, mostly mentioning the negativities of the city. He criticising the amount of Import – which he understands as a lack of independence from the old world – and other Economical things, which Scobie earlier described without any negative critics. He even praises the United States in a few word with comparing it to Argentina. This is only notable, because from the texts it is clear, the Argentinians are not keen on comparing them to “the big brother of the North”. He constantly reflects of the lack of independence from the old world that I mentioned earlier, stating that all the good things what Argentine has, are coming from Europe.
It is a way different opinion what the Scottish travel writer, John Foster Fraser has. He mentions all the adapted things from the new world, but unlike Huret, he clearly does it in a more positive, but also neutral way. He places great emphasis on the origin of the Argentinian people, mentioning several times their Latin origin. He mostly paints a positive picture on the city of Buenos Aires, but does not forget to mention all the known negative critics and opinions on the manner of People. As a Britton, he likes to underline the similarities of the country with Britain, yet he mentions the differences also. He also mentioned the financial investments and relations of Britain with the country, so in the end we can say, he paints a positive picture of the country, because he feels that his country had played significant role in the growing of the Latin American country
All in all, I think it is remarkably noticable, how different people backgrounds, affect their personal opinions on certain things. With reading all the sources of the same thing from different people, while trying to be aware of their personal opinion, we can truly build up a very common and unified picture of a certain place and era.