From Rotary Club to Sowers of Friendship

This article examines the political activism of conservative civil society in postrevolutionary Mexico through the lens of American service clubs. It focuses on the case of the Rotary Club of Monterrey, which gathered the city's industrial elites and some of the most vocal opponents of the Mexican state, particularly the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40). Monterrey is significant because of its economic and political clout; by the 1930s, it was the powerhouse of heavy industry and in the 1940s a key center of support for the Partido Acción Nacional. After Monterrey Rotarians dissolved their club in 1936, following a disagreement with Rotary International's policy against political involvement, they regrouped and established throughout Mexico the only service club that blended pro-business goals with right-wing hispanidad ideology: the Club Sembradores de Amistad. This story illustrates how conservative civil society in Mexico adopted seemingly contradictory transnational influences (Catholic Hispanist thought and American service clubs) to challenge the postrevolutionary state in a less confrontational way.