"Montaǫ considers the significance of the electrification of Mexico both as the symbolic construction of a modern nation as well as in the day-to-day lives of citizens. With the electrification of Mexico came new modes of transportation, trolleys, which raised the threat of accidents and related anxieties over modernity in general. It also brought attempts both to regulate electricity and to steal it, which Montaǫ uses to show the many new ways in which people were employing electricity, such as new electrical appliances in the kitchen. These, in turn, shaped understandings of gender, class, race, and culinary nationalism throughout the first half of the twentieth century"-- Provided by publisher.