Before complaining about the job you have, look at what those who stayed on the street did for a living, literally. Note that Fosforito lacks category... his was a case of sublime vocation.
It never occurred to them to sell contraband or distribute base paste. No sir, they were people who had a trade or were willing to learn it. We are not talking about street vendors, but about people with a profession but with the misfortune of lacking working capital. Even so, they raised their children and like Giuseppe the cobbler, they made them university students. Some sons were recognized for the sacrifice, but others were not at all. If you have a child or grandchild who doesn't want to study, tell them about the efforts of these heroes when a university degree was out of the imagination of the most optimistic.
Alberto Moroy took the trouble to collect some of those old trades and even reunited us with Fosforito, the most beloved among our street workers of the past. Those people didn't fall so low as to sell pasta base or rob a grocer, they had another ingenuity and another idea of how to create a new service when there was no work, or when there was if they liked what they did.
some old trades
This painting was painted by Benjamín Franklin Razón, a painter from San Juan (Arg.), Around 1860, his title is “El escobero”. Sixty years before, during the Viceroyalty, this trade was common and this is how these songs of the pedlars left it reflected: I am the black Tinto / who always passes by / selling brooms and feather dusters / and nobody wants to buy me. Here comes the broom who wants to help her, my brooms and dusters really do sweep. Broom, broom to clean the floor of the great room! Dusters and brushes, brooms, brooms to clean the floor of living rooms and halls! quality brooms for freedom to shine!
I broom! to sweep away the viceroy…there is nothing like Miguel's brooms! Escoberoooooo!
In addition to those mentioned below, there were others such as the sillero, wicker, blacksmith, potters, baker, etc. We will deal with street vendors in another article.
Sharpener year 1900 Sharpener and umbrella stand 1917 / Sharpener 1960 / Siringa (chiflo)
the sharpener
I still retain in my memory one in Carrasco, already quite old, who dragged a kind of gray wooden wheelbarrow, with a cart wheel like the one seen below. This modality was common everywhere, until the advent of the bike, as they needed a large wheel to multiply the speed of their whetstone to a speed that would allow grinding without scratching or chipping the metal. When the use of the bicycle became popular, it replaced the "wheelbarrow". Using the smaller diameter wheel attached to the rear but faster, thanks to the pedals.
The melody of their Siringa (whistle) was spectacular, their language was unintelligible, although today we know that they spoke Galician and often among themselves, their own language, which is called BARALLETE and is based on the Galician spoken in Orense, which is encrypted with the substitution of habitual words for other invented ones and without any linguistic connection with it (more or less like the jargon). It was impossible for a layman to understand this conversation. Once they were umbrella fixers and castrators, but it is seen that the adaptation to the environment led them to exercise only the office of sharpener. Surely they did not see a Chiflo like the one in the photo (below wood). Although the sharpener is still present, the sound of his whistle is nothing like it and his work is totally "devalued"
Barallete http://gallegosporelmundo.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/barallete/
Sound flute sharpener http://www.archive.org/details/SonidoFlautaAfilador
Modern sharpener very good!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9m3UNHkby0&feature=related
mattress
Half a century ago, it was common to see a mattress maker carding the wool from a family mattress. The work was done in the patio or on the terrace: one end of the mattress was disassembled and all the wool was removed. After passing it through the carder, he let it dry. Once clean and untangled, he would put it back into the mattress. Formerly the mattress maker went to the houses where they requested their services and there they cleaned the wool mattresses, which consisted of unstitching the mattress fabric, removing the wool, carding, once the mattress fabric was clean proceed to filling, first sewing the mouth of the fabric and then the entire perimeter of the mattress, which is known as a weatherstripping, all a completely handmade work.
Wool carding machine / Sewing a mattress on the mattress grill
the gypsy
The zinguero did his repairs in his small workshop (the Piendibene Hermanos tin and zinguería was famous, on Chucarro street in Pocitos) or on the street. After examining the pot, he cleaned the area to be repaired with a file or sandpaper, leaving it shiny, and then brushed it with diluted muriatic acid. He applied paraffin to it, and later, with an almost red-hot soldering iron, carefully melted the tin from the bar until the hole was covered. It is a profession almost disappeared today. In homes, zinc objects practically do not exist, replaced by those made of plastic material.
The shoemaker
Not long ago the cobbler still existed, with his figure sitting on a sidewalk, from sunup to sundown. In front of him was a small old table a little less than half a meter high, full of the tools of the trade: awls, nails, pieces of glass, needles, threads waxed with a paste called cerote, pieces of antlers filled with paste and boxes and cans filled with bitumen. Others, those who went from door to door, practically worked with nothing (like the one in the photo below), they only carried portable things and yes a shoemaker's hat or anvil that today would be a curiosity.
Cobbler's bigornia
The inclement weather was one of his greatest sufferings: in summer, he was embraced by the sun's rays, about to cause sunstroke, and in winter, receiving the rains that soaked him to the bone, and the winds that whipped him from full. Thus, with a bit of luck, he would spend the day putting on half soles, straightening heels, sewing rips, mending and covering the holes in the soles of the poor man's shoes and not so much. The usual thing was shoes with nailed leather; the shoemaker placed half a dozen nails in his mouth, and placed them in the precise place with a dry, exact and sure hammer blow. The shoes were renewed after two or three half soles, and the life of the studs was prolonged by adding rubber studs or metal plates on the outer edge. On other occasions, the reason was to place the shoes on the last in order to widen and soften them to avoid injury to the fingers.
First photo of Louis Daguerre 1839 (Fr.) / Enlargement / Shine boots 1890
In 1839 Louis Daguerre set out to test his latest invention on the Boulevard du Temple in Paris. The invention in question was the daguerreotype, a true forerunner of modern photography. To test it, he held his invention up to the window and took a 10-minute exposure of the view outside. The result was the one in the photo above.
The first thing that surprises is… how empty is that street in the middle of Paris!… Then, thinking about it better, one can understand that the street may actually have been crowded with people, horses and carriages moving from one side to the other, only that the very low sensitivity of the emulsion used (remember the required 10 minutes of exposure) would make it impossible to capture people moving…. Except one! The one who is standing in the lower left area of the image, with her hands behind her back and her foot resting on something… How did that person know that she had to stay still for 10 minutes to be printed in the image? Well, she never knew… actually, she was just getting her shoes shined… Those 10 minutes of shining were enough to achieve a rare achievement: being the first person photographed in history…
Ref. http://www.macusergroup.com.ar/foro/showthread.php?t=21084
What did they polish it with?
For hundreds of years numerous substances were used for this purpose, initially natural products such as waxes or tallow. The product's popularity grew from the 19th century in parallel with leather and synthetic footwear: the World Wars meant a significant growth in demand for polishing army boots. One of the most widespread brands worldwide is Kiwi, whose factory was founded in Australia in 1904. Modern formulas began to be manufactured at the beginning of the 20th century, with a composition that includes natural and synthetic ingredients such as naphtha, turpentine, dyes and gum arabic, mixed by simple chemical processes.
the chimney sweep
The first time I saw one was in Buenos Aires, many years ago, he was on a beat-up motorcycle, it seemed like the devil was running, the top hat he was wearing as a helmet that would surely have him tied up, gave him a ghostly appearance. On the sides of the motorcycle he had brushes anyway, his face was totally black, later I learned they painted it with burnt cork, (it was part of the marketing).
The chronicles of the year 1928 narrate that it was quite a dirty job, despite the ancient elegance of the clothing. Mounted on their bicycles, the chimney sweeps pedaled with a forty-meter rope, a sinker, a brush, a chain and three drumsticks: one long, one medium and one short, as well as a hand-held bristle brush about forty centimeters long. long. This is how they walked the streets on their way to fulfill their tasks, which without a doubt “facilitated the entrance of Santa Claus” through the Uruguayan chimneys….”In this type of work we find everything, says our chimney sweep, once a small drawer full of of dollars, albeit quite charred. On another occasion it was a chest with 120 grams of gold. He who cleans finds.» «I got into a conduit to uncover an elbow, I went in very tight. When I wanted to leave I couldn't. I began to hear the noises that the stoker was making when preparing a fire to put into the boiler, that's when I started to scream and scream. The firemen took me out.”…
The hairs of the ramrod are twisted wires made by hand by the chimney sweep himself, removing these hairs the brush loosens, until it comes to disarm completely. With the passage of time, changes in habits and technological advances, the combustion produced by coal and oil was losing ground compared to that produced by gas (Arg.), with less and less soot residue. In Montevideo This profession still exists, although surely the marketing of walking dirty and with top hat down the street is no longer practiced. This is what a recent notice said «Chimney sweep, stove and chimney cleaning, we clean your stove, we chimney sweep your wood stove, safe and responsible work Enjoy your wood stove to the fullest... contact us without obligation»
London 1920
Modern chimney sweeps http://www.chimneysweeps.com/default2.html
Square photographer (Chasirete)
He was an emblematic figure of the tourist squares and places and, thanks to his work, characters and customs of a time that no longer exists were recorded. The old chasiretes (name derived from the camera chassis) or minute minders (for the time that a photo required) By municipal provision, they had to wear overalls and wear a hat.
Dialogue from back then
–Excuse me… Did you see the “chasirete”?
-It's me. Sit down and I'll take a picture of you.–But are you a photographer or “chasirete”?–They're almost synonymous… –Ahh! Shall I sit here? -Yes, on that bench, that's how the fountain comes out from the background. Now stay put until I tell you. Let me control the time. Do not move. –Is there a long way to go?–A few more seconds and we're done. Do not move! –So much trouble to take a picture?–I'm a photographer, not a magician. –I don't understand.–Do you think it's about sitting down, pressing the shutter and the photo is ready? –Yes.–But stop talking nonsense. This machine has its times. Through this little hole in the front, it captures the image that is reproduced on the plate, and since the drawer is dark, I have to allow light to enter for several minutes so that the entire image is reconstructed on the plate. –And how many photos can you take per minute?–Sometimes not even one. It takes a long time. For this reason, in addition to “chasiretes” they call us “minute hands”. –But in the end, is he a photographer or a watchmaker?–Do you want a classic definition? I am a minute photographer who uses this machine, which is called a drawer, and I take handmade photographs, set in a certain place in the city, generally squares and walkways. You sit down and I shoot the photo, expose it for a few minutes and hand you the copy. –In black and white?–Yes. Do you want it in color? –And of course!–Well, wait until I paint it. -How are you going to paint it? -And what do you want? What comes out of the machine painted? –Of course!–You can't. Do you know something? I like youth for that. They are always crazy in the head, which later end up in great inventions. Dare, boy, maybe you can make one that takes pictures fast and in color.
The fictitious dialogue and the photos are from the site http://www.magicasruinas.com.ar/revistaro/argentina/argentina-fotografos-de-plaza.htm
Street hairdresser in the Viceroyalty
Street hairdresser in the Viceroyalty/ XIX century hairdresser
street advertising
In 1830 in England, a police decree prohibited the posting of signs on private properties, the sandwich men began to appear. In 1930 in the United States, the Great Depression led many to advertise their resumes through this type of notice, it was also a way of avoiding paying advertising taxes on public roads. In Uruguay, it was surely known for many years, despite the lack of The only chronicles we have and know about is that of «Fosforito».
His real name was Juan Antonio Rezzano on December 12, 1991, he was granted an ex gratia pension. In 2004 a tribute was paid to him at the Theater of the House of Culture of Maldonado. «With big shoes and swaying like Chaplín he walked through «18» and stood for a long time in front of the windows of the London-Paris. He worked for several years as a "sandwich man" in Punta del Este and walking through the Plaza de la OSE he played his castanets, Fito Páez saw him, who was performing that night on the peninsula. After a while, "Fosforito" accompanied with his rhythmic little bones the talented Fito who was playing in a bowling alley in the port of Punta del Este.
Juan Antonio Rezzano (Fosforito) / Bombin, "rhythmic" bones
A little more about this beloved character http://www.enlacesuruguayos.com/fosforito.htm
Grace Pension. The Commune of Maldonado invites the Exhibition Homage to Fosforito, The Last Uruguayan Duende that will be inaugurated on Wednesday, September 1st at 7:30 p.m. in the Theater of the House of Culture of Maldonado.Juan Antonio Rezzano (Fosforito) is a character integrated into the folklore of Montevideo and also into the summers of Punta del Este, which is preserved by the collective memory. Article 1.- Grant an ex gratia pension equivalent to four national minimum wages to Mr. Juan Antonio Rezzano Ferrín. Article 2º.- The resulting disbursement will be covered by General Revenue. Session Room of the Chamber of Senators, in Montevideo, on December 12, 1991.
