Telephonic Modernismo

Abstract

This essay analyzes the Havana-based literary weekly La Habana Elegante to consider the hemispheric dimensions of late nineteenth-century media change and the role that writers of Latin American descent played in it. As new electric media and improved print technology powered an expanding and interconnected world of print, La Habana Elegante mediated a hemispheric, Spanish-speaking print culture, especially through its foreign correspondence from New York City. The periodical defined that print culture through a notion of latinidad that bridged Latin America and the United States—and by envisioning a two-way flow of ideas between writers and readers. As US-based English-language newspapers developed emerging mass cultural forms that starkly divided producers and consumers, La Habana Elegante tapped into notions of simultaneity inspired by the telegraph and, especially, the telephone to promote a more interactive modern media system meant to circulate Latin American culture throughout the hemisphere.