Railway Workers and Occupational Accidents: Physical Force, Risks and Masculinities in Early Twentieth-Century Argentina

Abstract

This chapter analyzes work accidents in Argentine railroads during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Although occupational accidents multiplied at the rate of industrial growth, railways offered a special and hazardous scenario that could cause the death of its workers, leave them sequels and permanent disabilities or, at best, minor injuries that healed in a few days. This study focuses on the ways in which railroad workers experienced the dangers and responsibilities to which they were exposed. It pays special attention to the notions of risks, requirements and responsibilities of the profession that railwaymen articulated around the problem of work accidents, understanding that these were strongly linked to ideas and prescriptions of masculinity and to certain senses granted to railway labors. In a working world composed mainly of men, this research is based on the belief that workspace was a key place - although not exclusive - in the construction of workers’ masculinity, and that certain ideas and characteristics of railway work influenced this configuration. The study is based in the information provided by union journals, especially, of that news that reported on dangers and accidents, and denounced the bad working conditions in which the companies incurred.