Dominican sugar to be competitive in the U.S., but fortunately Europe in ruins created a huge market for Dominican sugar mills. Historians termed the sugar boom in the Spanish Caribbean during the early decades of the twentieth century the “Dance of the Millions”—millions of dollars generated in the sugar fields.
The Dominican Republic now had an export-based economy, and the center of that export economy—the center of the Dominican economy from the late nineteenth century into the 1930s—was the sugar industry and the ingenios of San Pedro de Macorís: Consuelo, Las Pajas, Quisqueya, Angelina, Santa Fe, Cristóbal Colón, and Porvenir.
From the eastern bank of the Higuamo River, an affluent town of elegance and culture was emerging. In 1888, the leading poet of the nineteenth-century Dominican Republic, thirty-year-old Gastón Fernando Deligne, a native of Santo Domingo, abandoned the capital for San Pedro de Macorís, where he wrote much of his important work until his death in 1913. Joaquín Balaguer, the right-wing caudillo, literary scholar, and poet, rated him one of the best poets and wrote that he had the ability “to put together in the same composition, at times the same stanza, the most prosaic of realistic details along with the loftiest thoughts and most evolved forms.”
Other literary figures followed, and San Pedro for a time was known for its poets. The year Deligne died, Pedro Mir, the leading Dominican poet of the twentieth century, was born in San Pedro. Typical of the increasingly cosmopolitan nature of San Pedro, Mir’s father was a Cuban sugar mill engineer who had come to San Pedro to work for Cristóbal Colón and there met and married Pedro’s mother, who was from Puerto Rico. Mir was working in the Cristóbal Colón mill, when the leftist Juan Bosch, a major literary figure in the 1930s, took an interest in his poetry. The reverse of Deligne, Mir started in San Pedro but ended up building his reputation in Santo Domingo—except during the period from 1947 to 1961, when he fled the Trujillo regime and lived in Cuba. In 1984 the Dominican legislature named him poet laureate. Typical of the bizarre contradiction that was Balaguer, the literary critic praised Mir for using his poetry to stand up to the “despotism and social injustice” that Balaguer the politician participated in.
Ludín Lugo Martínez, born in San Pedro, was a leading Dominican woman poet and novelist. René del Risco Bermúdez, born in San Pedro in 1937, was a poet and short story writer who suffered prison and exile in the Trujillo years and then, in 1974—just when his reputation was growing—died in an automobile accident at the age of thirty-seven. And there have been numerous others. If San Pedro had not been so successful at baseball, it would have been famous for its poets.
During the sugar-boom years, there was considerable intellectual life in San Pedro. Among the young people involved in the poetry scene was Evangelina Rodríguez Perozo, born in 1879, who went off to Paris to study medicine and returned to be the first native-born doctor in Dominican history. There was considerable interest in the advancement of women in San Pedro. In 1886, Deligne began championing the idea that women were entitled to the same education as men. In 1922, the first feminist political organization in Dominican history, the Dominican Feminist Association for the Rights of Woman, was established in San Pedro by Petronila Angélica Gómez, a journalist and teacher. Its magazine, Fémina , was the first in the Dominican Republic to be edited by women. It published for seventeen years.
Built on sugar money, a handsome town emerged with ornate homes and stores in architectural styles from Belle Époque to Art Deco. A central park with tropical gardening was created, and a new white cathedral, finished in 1913, defined the skyline as it gleamed in the sun. A stately two-story balconied yellow and white City Hall, pretty as a
The Dominican Republic now had an export-based economy, and the center of that export economy—the center of the Dominican economy from the late nineteenth century into the 1930s—was the sugar industry and the ingenios of San Pedro de Macorís: Consuelo, Las Pajas, Quisqueya, Angelina, Santa Fe, Cristóbal Colón, and Porvenir.
From the eastern bank of the Higuamo River, an affluent town of elegance and culture was emerging. In 1888, the leading poet of the nineteenth-century Dominican Republic, thirty-year-old Gastón Fernando Deligne, a native of Santo Domingo, abandoned the capital for San Pedro de Macorís, where he wrote much of his important work until his death in 1913. Joaquín Balaguer, the right-wing caudillo, literary scholar, and poet, rated him one of the best poets and wrote that he had the ability “to put together in the same composition, at times the same stanza, the most prosaic of realistic details along with the loftiest thoughts and most evolved forms.”
Other literary figures followed, and San Pedro for a time was known for its poets. The year Deligne died, Pedro Mir, the leading Dominican poet of the twentieth century, was born in San Pedro. Typical of the increasingly cosmopolitan nature of San Pedro, Mir’s father was a Cuban sugar mill engineer who had come to San Pedro to work for Cristóbal Colón and there met and married Pedro’s mother, who was from Puerto Rico. Mir was working in the Cristóbal Colón mill, when the leftist Juan Bosch, a major literary figure in the 1930s, took an interest in his poetry. The reverse of Deligne, Mir started in San Pedro but ended up building his reputation in Santo Domingo—except during the period from 1947 to 1961, when he fled the Trujillo regime and lived in Cuba. In 1984 the Dominican legislature named him poet laureate. Typical of the bizarre contradiction that was Balaguer, the literary critic praised Mir for using his poetry to stand up to the “despotism and social injustice” that Balaguer the politician participated in.
Ludín Lugo Martínez, born in San Pedro, was a leading Dominican woman poet and novelist. René del Risco Bermúdez, born in San Pedro in 1937, was a poet and short story writer who suffered prison and exile in the Trujillo years and then, in 1974—just when his reputation was growing—died in an automobile accident at the age of thirty-seven. And there have been numerous others. If San Pedro had not been so successful at baseball, it would have been famous for its poets.
During the sugar-boom years, there was considerable intellectual life in San Pedro. Among the young people involved in the poetry scene was Evangelina Rodríguez Perozo, born in 1879, who went off to Paris to study medicine and returned to be the first native-born doctor in Dominican history. There was considerable interest in the advancement of women in San Pedro. In 1886, Deligne began championing the idea that women were entitled to the same education as men. In 1922, the first feminist political organization in Dominican history, the Dominican Feminist Association for the Rights of Woman, was established in San Pedro by Petronila Angélica Gómez, a journalist and teacher. Its magazine, Fémina , was the first in the Dominican Republic to be edited by women. It published for seventeen years.
Built on sugar money, a handsome town emerged with ornate homes and stores in architectural styles from Belle Époque to Art Deco. A central park with tropical gardening was created, and a new white cathedral, finished in 1913, defined the skyline as it gleamed in the sun. A stately two-story balconied yellow and white City Hall, pretty as a
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