Learning to drive: Work, training, labor market integration, and chauffeur organizations in Mexico City, 1903-1933

Abstract

This article analyzes the training practices and job placement mechanisms for chauffeurs in Mexico City between 1903 and 1933, in the context of changes in the world of work, the expansion of motor transport, and political conflicts in Mexico. The main objective is to identify the knowledge required to perform the job, the strategies used to transmit this knowledge, and the training spaces, as well as the labor markets in which these workers were integrated and the relationships with authorities and urban observers that framed the work. The hypothesis is that this training combined formal and informal practices, literate and illiterate, as well as guild traditions with modern forms. Based on the analysis of various primary sources — regulations, manuals, specialized magazines, advertisements, administrative records, and letters from trade associations — the spaces and practices for transmitting knowledge about the know-how and savoir-faire of the trade are identified. The findings show a mixed training in various spaces: private schools, practical learning in workshops, training in small businesses, and the use of technical manuals in garages. On the other hand, it is noteworthy that training contributed to building a masculine identity as a skilled worker in the public sphere, which allowed chauffeurs to claim rights and challenge negative representations through various organizations within guild traditions and trade unionism.