The ambiguities of progress: Cultural appropriation of electric trams in the Southern Cone, 1890-1950 (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil)

The introduction, development and decline of tramway systems in Latin American countries has usually been studied from a technical, commercial or an urban growth perspective. As an attempt to diversify and explore new angles, the following article will look at how different discourses and representations contributed to shape the way in which inhabitants perceived and adapted to these technologies. We propose that these discourses and representations shifted from idealistic and utopian images, produced by a small elite interested in the introduction of these devices, to a more democratic and critical production of meaning that arose from its everyday use. For this purpose, this article reviews existent studies on tramway history and combines them with other less visited sources from Spanish and Brazilian literature.