The Rural Elite and its Investment in Formal Education at the End of the 19th Century: The Case of Pedro C. Molina (1880-1914)

This article focuses on the study of the trajectory of Pedro C. Molina (1853-1920), founder of the town of Almafuerte in the province of Cordoba and a politician of the Union Civica Radical (UCR). He belonged to a family of landowners who possessed a land grant in the area of Tercero Arriba and whose lineage went back to the Molina Navarrete. For that reason, since colonial times, the family had a certain prestige. However, by the end of the nineteenth century, these families were in a phase of decline in reputation within the Cordoba elite. Although Molina was going to inherit a piece of land from the Estancia El Salto, his ability to access to education allowed him to forge his way into the intellectual and political environment of Cordoba and to be projected at the national level as a reference within the UCR.