Class, ethnicity, and gender in Brazil: The negotiation of workers' identities in Porto Alegre's 1906 strike

This article examines one formative moment in the making of a working class in Brazil to show how workers refashioned multiple identities in response to interlocking structural transformations from artisanal to factory produc tion, from homogeneous to heterogeneous ethnic communities, and from a male labor force to one that was increasingly female. Anarchist labor organizer s contested the myth of the happy artisan and conflated the exploitation of artisans and factory workers to advance class consciousness. Ethnic ties t hat had initially fostered organization began to hamper class solidarity, n ow strained under new ideological conflicts, and facilitated effective resi stance from employers. As appeals to ethnicity became problematic, appeals to gender emerged: women workers made themselves visible and audible and pl ayed an important role in the evolution of the movement. The ways in which they were seen and heard in the streets, however contrasted with their repr esentations in elite discourse, which sought to use gender to manipulate di visions within the emerging working class.