Stability and Growth (1880-1930)

Roca and his allies consolidated Argentina's sprawling political structure into a centralized state that oversaw the most peaceful and prosperous period of Argentina's history. Over the next fifty years Argentina became a rich and modern nation in an environment of open markets, foreign investment, and heavy immigration from Europe. The export economy boomed, railroads were built, and the countryside was settled. Buenos Aires and other cities grew enormously. An urban middle class emerged.

In 1916, Hipólito Yrigoyen of the not-so-radical Radical party became Argentina's first freely elected president. Despite lingering inequalities, people had every reason to hope for a brighter future as the economy soared through the 1920s. And then the great depression hit Argentina.

Falling prices in Europe and elsewhere knocked the Argentine export economy flat, and foreign flows of investment dried up overnight. President Yrigoyen, now 78 years old, suddenly appeared incompetent and detached from reality, even senile. Amid the economic chaos of 1930 the army occupied the Casa Rosada, Argentina's presidential palace, in the first military coup of modern Argentine history. Sadly, it would not be the last.

Populism and Peron