Nineteenth-century academic engineers, cartographers and builders of Mexico’s material heritage

This research paper examines the premise that during the Virreinato and Independent Mexico academic instruction and applied science prevailed and thrived in Mexico City, and that this knowledge was disseminated from the center to the periphery throughout the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. Efforts have been made to vindicate the importance of provincial men of science and academic institutions; however, in the historiography of science only the biographies and works of engineers rooted in and trained by Mexico City’s institutions are recorded and promoted. The history of the engineers who train and work in the interior of the Mexican nation has been erased due to the centralism that still persists within certain institutions and areas of knowledge. This study focuses on the history of applied science during Independent Mexico by exploring mining, surveying, and military engineers -also categorized as itinerant engineers, both foreign and local- the latter emerging in the principal population centers that originated as reales de minas, locations that, owing to their economic vitality, became enclaves of art, technology, science, and academia.