Policing Waters and Baths in Eighteenth-Century Mexico City
Casey Walsh
Chapter from the book: Walsh, C. 2018. Virtuous Waters: Mineral Springs, Bathing, and Infrastructure in Mexico.
Part of
Chapter from the book: Walsh, C. 2018. Virtuous Waters: Mineral Springs, Bathing, and Infrastructure in Mexico.
In the late eighteenth century, new approaches to government were deployed to deal with problems of water scarcity and social unruliness. Investments in infrastructure brought together multiple waters, and the material and conceptual unification of waters as a singular substance began to take shape. These material developments were accompanied by a moral effort to reshape popular bathing practices that were deemed dangerous to boundaries of race, class, and sex, as well as the social order these boundaries defined. City police intervened to stop people from bathing themselves and their animals in public fountains, to keep men and women apart in bathhouses, and to keep wastewater separate from fresh water.
Walsh, C. 2018. Policing Waters and Baths in Eighteenth-Century Mexico City. In: Walsh, C, Virtuous Waters. California: University of California Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.48.c
This chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution + Noncommercial + NoDerivatives 4.0 license. Copyright is retained by the author(s)
This book has been peer reviewed. See our Peer Review Policies for more information.
Published on March 9, 2018