Pardo y Barreda, José (1864–1947)

José Pardo y Barreda (b. 1864; d. 3 August 1947), president of Peru (1904–1908; 1915–1919). The son of Peru's first full-term civilian president, Manuel Pardo y Lavalle, José Pardo inherited the mantle of leadership of the Civilista Party in 1904 when Manuel Candamo died suddenly in office. Supported by the younger, reform-minded wing of the party, his presidency has been called the golden age of Civilista rule. For the next four years he increased school expenditures by 250 percent, extended major rail lines, and created a merchant marine. He served a second term as president (1915–1919), when, at military urging, the Civilista, Liberal, and Constitutionalist parties supported a common candidate. In his last term, responding to various pressures he unenthusiastically raised the minimum wage for farm workers and supported religious toleration. But the first general strike ever carried out in Peru (1 January 1919), uniting workers and university students, demanded student power in university administration and a universal eight-hour workday. Half-hearted Civilista reforms failed to stem growing student and labor political unrest.

See alsoPeru, Political Parties: Civilista Party .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Steven Stern, Populism in Peru: The Emergence of the Masses and the Politics of Social Control (1980).

Peter Blanchard, The Origins of the Peruvian Labor Movement, 1883–1919 (1982).

Additional Bibliography

McEvoy, Carmen. La utopía republicana: Ideales y reali-dades en la formación de la cultura política peruana, 1871–919. Lima: Pontifica Universidad Católica del Peru, Fondo Editorial, 1997.

McEvoy, Carmen. Un proyecto nacional en el siglo XIX: Manuel Pardo y su vision del Perú. Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Fondo Editorial, 1994.

                                        Vincent Peloso