In a provocative study based on extensive original research, Karush reinterprets Argentina's first experiment with electoral democracy. By the early twentieth century, massive immigration and rapid economic growth had generated severe class conflict. In 1912, the nation's elite attempted to defuse this conflict by enacting electoral reforms designed to incorporate the working-class children of immigrants into the body politic. The book reconstructs the ensuing struggles over national identity and political representation as they played out in Rosario, then the country's second largest city. Most of Rosario's politicians saw democracy not as a means to extend representation to subordinate social groups but as a nation-building tool aimed at transforming class-conscious workers into classless citizens. Intent on preserving their own hegemony, these politicians tried unsuccessfully to banish appeals to class interests from the political marketplace. Karush draws upon a wide range of sources--including the mainstream and anarchist press, political speeches, popular literature, and tango lyrics--to show that in the voting booth and on the picket line workers selectively appropriated and manipulated the various identities made available by politicians and popular culture. In charting the course of Rosario's political history, this book also offers a new perspective on both the collapse of Argentine democracy in 1930 and the rise of Peronism in 1945.