Diferencia entre revisiones de «Impresos de la Casa Vanegas Arroyo/ENG»

The late 19th century and the early 20th is marked by the development of the printing press and the relevance of all kinds of printing material throughout Europe, among which stand out those produced by the presses that functioned as full-fledged bookshops. These presses played a major role in disseminating popular literature. The texts they produced had a “mixed” origin, according to Luis Díaz Viana, since they came as much from oral tradition as from “cultivated” written sources that were probably oralised. ^[1]

      In Mexico, the situation was not very different. The Vanegas Arroyo publishing house was founded in 1880, emerging as the principal producer of printed popular literature, and was successful as such until 1917, when the publisher died. From then on, and for several decades, it functioned as testamentary press under his son Blas. The print shop irradiated a rich imagery of national and international scope from its various locations in the traditional neighbourhoods of the presses in the Mexican capital. The first printing press of New Spain and of the entire American continent was actually located a few streets form the Metropolitan Cathedral.
      The first location of the Vanegas Arroyo print shop was precisely behind this important religious building, in a passage of the calle de la Encarnación (today Luis González Obregón) where the young publisher “[…]bought a small glass window from a butcher for three pesos; he built a table and started binding texts from the bookshop of don José María Aguilar y Ortiz”. ^[2]. Shortly after, he acquired his first wooden press (of the type called “frasqueta”) and some mobile types ^[3] with which he made his first prints, with the imprint “Tip. y Encuadernación de A. Vanegas Arroyo. Encarnación núms. 9 y 10”; for a brief period, around 1888, the press moved to the next street, i.e. no. 2 on calle de la Perpetua. The binding shop of the printer’s father, José María Vanegas, who arrived from the city of Puebla in 1867, was located on the same street, no.8 1/2.
      The business flourished, and around 1899 ^[4] it moved again, a couple of blocks southwards, to the calle 2a de Santa Teresa, where it most probably stood on top of what a century later would be revealed as the Templo Mayor. Back then, the sight and aspect of the place was quite different. In its location of calle de Santa Teresa (which would change name around the 1920s to calle República de Guatemala) the print shop saw its most productive years, until the publisher passed away in March 1917. ^[5]. In the course of this period, and only on this street, the print shop and office boasted four different locations. For some time, they occupied numbers 1 and 43 simultaneously, ^[6], but the building of number 1 was “[…] so old […] that it was materially falling apart and threatened to collapse, which is why by the end of December of the year 1913, mister Vanegas moved to a building across the street, number 40, which stood right beside a bicycle shop […]”. ^[7]
      While the business was operating in calle de Santa Teresa, the publisher enlarged its business towards the East by buying a house near the Penitenciaría de México (currently Archivo General de la Nación) to which he moved the machines from his workshop. He occupied the calle 5ª de Lecumberri, 4ª de la Imprenta, and 2ª de la Penitenciaría. This last place, which would later be identified as number 27 of calle de la Penitenciaría, is also where Vanegas Arroyo established his home, a building that is still occupied by his descendants, who conserve a great part of the family archive, and was declared historical monument in 1981.
      When the publisher died in 1917, his son Blas continued printing, establishing the Tipografía de la Testamentaría de Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, which functioned in building number 40 of the calle de Santa Teresa and changed later its imprint to “Avenida Guatemala 40”.

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