Argentina

This series of interviews provides a broad general view of Argentina at a critical period in that country's development. A joint effort of the Instituto Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires and the Oral History Research Office at Columbia University, the project began in 1970 with a grant from the Tinker Foundation. While the memoirs focus primarily on the 1930s, there is much background information from prior years, and a number of the memoirists deal with events in the succeeding two decades. The institute plans to continue the project, concentrating next on the 1940s and the rise to power of Juan D. Peron. Taken together, the memoirs offer a richly detailed panorama of political, sociological, and economic developments unobtainable elsewhere. A group of labor leaders highlight the unions, the factional and partisan conflicts within the labor movement, and attitudes toward ethnic and regional concentrations.

Argentine industrial and manufacturing figures describe technological changes, relationships with foreign enterprises, and attitudes toward organized labor. Political leaders discuss internal organization and practices of political groups, with examples from municipal and national campaigns. The interviews were conducted by staff members of the institute.