From Religious Charity to Bourgeois Philanthropy: The Social Gift and its Images

Abstract

In the context of the ideological, political and military struggles that set Liberals against Conservatives in nineteenth-century Mexico, this text connects a set of religious, allegorical, devotional and genre images related to the subject of charity. These images were produced in different formats and for diverse audiences. Based on research in written media, archives, and other primary sources, the article examines the activities of the Sisters of Charity and lay individuals organized in “Conferences”, mainly of women, to alleviate the ravages caused by modernity. The analysis of the selected works reveals the symbolic capacity of visual culture in the process of building a modern society.