Crafts in Pasto, 1896-1920: meaning and instruction

Abstract

The article develops ideas about crafts as a category of analysis, the meaning of the terms craftsman and industry, and identifies the forms of craft instruction in Pasto during the period 1896-1920. 

Based on a review of approaches by Richard Sennett, who conceives the artisan as a whole being that embodies feelings, and reflections in the process of feeling, which allows for the emergence of skills; of Alberto Mayor Mora, who addresses the craft as a social stratum, and María Fernanda Duque, who considers it as a popular subculture and mentions the participation of artisans in the period 1891-1920 in acts of Freemasonry, adherence to the Republican Party and militancy in labor societies and mutual assistance, the article attempts to clarify the meaning of craftsman, worker and industrial individual in the society of Pasto in the same period. Next, the article deals with the technical instruction of the history of craftsmen, represented in the teaching of weaving straw hats, schools for craftsmen; the ornamentation and Modeling School and the School of Arts and Crafts. The achievements made in instruction techniques in the period studied, although they did correspond to the efforts of the time in pursuit of technical and industrial take-off, did not cause sufficient impact to achieve the transition from craft production to industrial production as was accomplished in other cities of Colombia, such as Medellin.

Information was obtained from the Municipal Historical Archive of Pasto, Press files from the Regional Chamber of the Banco de la República in Pasto and the National Library of Colombia. The information was interpreted through critical analysis of speeches and the confrontation between Government documentary sources and the press.