Indústria, salut i condcions de vida. Apunts sobre el primer liberalisme en un entorn urgbà (Barcelona 1820-1920)

Abstract

This work tries to explain the changes that took place in the first Spanish liberalism, not only from the analysis of the general political perspective, but from the effects of liberal revolution and industrialisation in an urban environment such as Barcelona as well. In this respect, it shows how the liberal social policy was reduced to strict individualistic, sanitary and welfare terms during the first decades of the new regime. In this context, it deepens in the problematic consequences of this reductionism in an urban environment and it tries to assess to what extent the special industrial reality contributed to overcome that strictly individualistic basis at the end of 19th and the beginning of 20th centuries. To do so, it has been useful to know how the town councils worked and how were their relations with the states government, in order to catch the centrality of their role in that political changes.