Woman Beauty and Fashion

This tracks the beginning of the process of change from the last third of the nineteenth century and demonstrates, with a varied and profuse documentation and a remarkable graphic device, such transformations are already largely crystallized after the First World War in the twenties of the last century.

The conditions for such changes should they occur were, first, that part of the population luanquina available, with the reduction of working hours, greater free time to devote to leisure, and, secondly, that for to practice it enjoyed a higher living standard and educational material.

The engine that should give these material conditions Luanco was the conversion of a major summer entertainment center as, from the last decades of the nineteenth century, is emerging and spreading to the middle of the new bourgeois society custom of the sea baths, a consequence of the new mindset and a different hygienist, almost antithetical to the traditional “conception of understanding the relationship between man and nature.

The emergence of such a space for leisure with the opening in 1890 on the beach at the Bank of a spa and a bathhouse, The Rosary, symbolizes more than any other institution in the conversion of Luanco summer resort. The spa was developed until its closure in 1917, a major recreational and cultural activity not only for the large colony of summer residents, among whom were the important people in regional and national life, but also for the population itself Luanco.

As demonstrated by the author with a detailed analysis Industrial Matriculation Register, the summer tourism led in turn also the establishment of modern industrial enterprises as those dedicated to the production of preserves, a major change in the structure of service establishments, with the appearance of those covering the demand for new forms of leisure and sociability bourgeois drugstores, pharmacies, cafes, Outfitters stores, cinemas, theaters, pool halls, cafes?

Cafes failed, however, to substitute, to the taverns, where the dominant drink was cider and we have several literary descriptions, such as that performed in the spring tavern in his novel, 1925 “Science and heart,” the labor leader, first socialist and later communist, born in Luanco Isidoro Acevedo.

The practice of this new leisure class also gave rise to a new urban landscape transformations in the urban morphology of the villa with rational city plan and the appearance of new buildings, construction of walkways, parks and even improving communications, among which there are two of the emblematic works of the town, as were the promenade built between 1915 and 1930 and the port of Gaius, whose works began in 1903 with support from Agriculture Minister Félix Suárez-Inclán, Asturian Luanco closely linked to family ties and regular member of their colony of summer. However, beyond a certain black legend that presupposes the opposition of a group of burghers of the town in this attempt, the efforts of local politicians and the lifeblood of the town were unsuccessful in their desire for the introduction of railways in the council and its capital.

The analysis of the evolution of the four major traditional festivals feasts Luanco-Santiago and Santa Ana, El Carmen, San Juan y del Cristo del Socorro-shows how the traditional model of these festivals were introduced some new elements from the new concept of leisure. But the most remarkable is the emergence of new commercialized leisure activities such as theater, operetta, variety shows, popular song, dance and film Sunday. The construction of the Teatro del Carmen in 1913 allowed to fill the gap that show, which was the preference for public luanquín, had led to the closure of the Ateneo Obrero. This institution also began to be the first film projections to 1904. In 1929, with the inauguration of the modern theater, and a remarkable ability, there are three ad hoc screening rooms in the villa luanquina.

These new leisure activities generated a rich fabric of associations instructional / recreational, the head of which is to put the early establishment by Mariano Suárez-Pola in 1869 of the educational foundation and Blessed Relief Christ among which are those dedicated to music and football-The Musical and Club Marine Luanco, but above all, the Ateneo Obrero, whose activities and organization the author devotes a detailed analysis in this book, which undoubtedly is a valid model for any future Local history study that tries to be carried out in Asturias.