Lencinists governments in Mendoza. Public Health and popular housing, 1918-1924

Abstract

A new political cycle was opened in Mendoza on February 1918: the government of the Union Cívica Radical directed by one of its leaders José Nestor Lencinas and his son Carlos Washington, with intermediate federals and others that close the period of the later before the end of his mandate. The anti oligarchic discourse and the direct treatment with the working class and the common people along with the approval of several laws that benefited them, determined a great support during the 1920 decade which was reflected in great electoral triumphs. We asked ourselves if the Lencinas provoked a clear and a profound break with conservative or oligarchic governs that exerted for more that half a century the power and modernization of the province of Mendoza, or, if the had had continuity. This is a premise which guides our research, which due to the scarce Lencinismo’s bibliography forces us to work in a historical reconstruction based on diverse sources. The article aims at determining if the well being of the population improved regarding health care and housing because of the new policies or because they were just a continuity of the ones fixed by the former conservatory regime.