The "Artistic Union": construction and legitimacy of a class association in the 1870s Recife

Abstract

This article makes preliminary analyses on the process of setting and founding the “Artistic Union”. In the decade of 1870, in Recife, a group of specialized handicraftsmen attempted to gather all the mutualists existing in town. The objective of the initiative was to construct a more comprehensive handicraft class identity, so that, through political battles, there could be social achievements. However, all seems to indicate that the “Artistic Union” led the differences to become radical between certain groups of qualified workers, who transformed the new entity into another stage for their day-to-day conflicts.