water

Aliases: 
waterways

Copyright information

Copyright information

“The City’s Currents: A History of Water in 20th-Century Bogotá” was created by Stefania Gallini, Laura Felacio, Angélica Agredo, and Stephanie Garcés (2014) under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

This refers only to the text and does not include any image rights. Please click on an image to view its individual rights status.

Historical cartography

Historical cartography

Maps are political rather than objective representations of a place. By selecting some pieces of information and codifying them, while silencing others, maps work as political discourses and are used as “marching orders” of geographies to be built.

Primary sources

Primary sources

The textual primary sources for this virtual exhibition include articles in scientific journals, magazines, and newspapers, as well as published books, academic dissertations, and manuals authored mainly by physicians, engineers, journalists, and public officials belonging to the intellectual elite of Bogotá. Municipal regulations by the Bogotá City Council, the National Health Directorate, the Central Board of Hygiene, and the Department of Urban Planning for Bogotá were also important.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

The virtual exhibition “The City’s Currents: A History of Water in Twentieth-Century Bogotá” is a collaboration of the Environment & Society Portal and the Línea de Historia Ambiental, the Environmental History Research Group of the department of history at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá. The exhibition was researched and authored by historians Stefania Gallini, Laura Felacio, Angélica Agredo, and Stephanie Garcés.

Further reading

Further reading

With no intention of providing an exhaustive literature review on the topics of urban environmental history, water history, waste history, and Bogotá history, we offer some reading suggestions based on the literature that we found most influential for this exhibition.
 

Waste and water pollution

Waste and water pollution

Saúl Ordúz, Niños en calle sin pavimentación, 1930

Authors

Authors

The virtual exhibition “The City’s Currents: A History of Water in 20th-Century Bogotá” is a collaboration of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society and the Línea de Historia Ambiental, the Environmental History Research Group of the Department of History at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá. The exhibition was researched and authored by historians Stefania Gallini, Laura Felacio, Angélica Agredo, and Stephanie Garcés.

Water supply and consumption

Water supply and consumption

Saúl Ordúz, Chorro de Padilla, 1979

Laundry and female laundry workers

Laundry and female laundry workers

“Eventually they arrive at the rivulet, which is as noisy and clattery as they are. Each of them picks a spot and moments later they begin their routine. Their songs and laughter break the steady cadence of the rolling crystalline waters and the sleepy hum of insects hiding below leaves or resting on the riverbanks. The constant smacking of clothes against rocks is reminiscent of alternating hammers on a forge. Playful taunts can be heard flying from wash spot to wash spot like agile arrows.

Bathrooms and personal hygiene

Bathrooms and personal hygiene

Gumersindo Cuéllar Jiménez, Mujer junto a niña sentadas junto al río