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Dr. Robert Buffington

In the eyes of the world, Mexican men embody the concept of “machismo,” that aggressively male behavior that can be either strong, silent and responsible or, conversely, vain, arrogant and belligerent.

However, Dr. Robert Buffington, history, has uncovered evidence in the Mexico City “penny presses” of 1900-10 that for working-class Mexican men, things were considerably more complicated than the macho stereotype would suggest. These satirical, four-page publications, written by educated workers and lower-status intellectuals, were a lively mix of political commentary and social criticism, plus cultural reportage often told in dialect and poetry. Pro-working class, filled with satirical cartoons and wordplay, they flourished briefly in the decade before the Mexican Revolution, when mass dailies took over.

Buffington will study this rich trove of popular writing through a one-year, $40,000 National Endowment of the Humanities fellowship that began Jan. 1. Titled “A Sentimental Education for the Working Man: Mexico City 1900-10,” the project will reconstruct the complex and shifting conditions under which early 20th-century Mexican working-class men emerged as specifically male citizens.