Agustín Víctor Casasola

November 11, 2010 1:36 PM

Slaves of the moment: "The Mexican Agustín Víctor Casasola, with the intermittent help of his brother Miguel, began to set up around 1900 one of the most important photographic archives for the history of a country. However, the international recognition of these almost 500,000 photos has not matched its importance. Born in 1874 and raised in the years of the Porfirio Díaz government, Agustín Casasola was a direct witness to all the adversities that led to modern Mexico, and breathed as nobody else the air of a country and a city that developed during the first third of the 20th century at a runaway pace."
posted by puny human (8 comments total)

very interesting post, i love looking at places and people from years past, also glad i did'nt live back then, and those places are still mexico, very different than the good old united states.
posted by tustinrick at 2:05 PM on November 11, 2010

Wow, amazing photographs! So many are strange, eerie, surreal.

Superb post and excellent find.
posted by nickyskye at 2:46 PM on November 11, 2010

Great post. Really great pictures from a time that most Mexicans can't really imagine, unless it's in some form of cartoonish images from the "estampitas" we used to have to buy and paste on school homework.
posted by CrazyLemonade at 3:41 PM on November 11, 2010

Wonderful photos - these playboys are so cool.
posted by unliteral at 5:17 PM on November 11, 2010

The photos are incredibly fascinating, but I confess that every once in a while I wish they hadn't run the caption through Babelfish one more time, "just to be sure":

"A couple who has changed his clothes dawns in the police station and is subject of ridicule. Mexico City, ca. 1935"
posted by Mike D at 5:26 PM on November 11, 2010

Me gusta.
posted by birdherder at 6:31 PM on November 11, 2010

unless it's in some form of cartoonish images from the "estampitas" we used to have to buy and paste on school homework.

Care to elaborate on this? I have no idea what you're talking about, but it sounds interesting.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 6:50 PM on November 11, 2010

Well, I searched and searched on Google images for something to explain this with, but I could just find this one about Los niños héroes as an example. (wiki)

Anyway, when I was in school, we would sometimes get asked to go to the papelería (literally, a paper store; actually, an office and school supply store) and get estampitas, small cards with the image and explanation of some revolution war hero, or past presidents, or topics like patriotism and such. Usually the estampitas had a really idealized image at the front and the explanation in the back. We'd go buy them, paste them on a poster or something, and bring them to class to present them to the class.
posted by CrazyLemonade at 9:09 AM on November 12, 2010 [1 favorite]