INDUSTRIAL PHOTOGRAPHY

La Negra cold store. Avellaneda, province of Buenos Aires. Circa 1895.

Gelatin silver print, toned in sepia. Measurements: 21.3 x 27 cm / 8.38 x 10.63 in. Work mounted on rigid cardboard. Photograph in good condition. It is displayed framed.

This visual document allows us to observe the Avellaneda refrigerator installed on the banks of the Riachuelo river. In front of one of the industrial warehouses, the identification of the Sansinena signature and the "La Negra" logo can be seen. The industrial landscape is complemented by smokestacks, cranes, barrels and transport barges. We must point out the scarcity of documentary photographs on the geographical limits of the city of Buenos Aires at this time.

Around 1885, the Frenchman Simón Gastón Sansinena founded an important meat processing plant and grocery store on the south bank of the Riachuelo in the lands of the current Avellaneda district. At that time, the agro-livestock industry boomed and the Compañía Sansinena de Meats Congeladas "La Negra" quickly grew, participating even in the famous Universal Exposition in Paris in 1889.

However, the financial crisis of 1890 forced this sole proprietorship to incorporate important capitalist partners such as the French Pedro Luro and the Argentine Ernesto Tornquist, transforming it into a public limited company. With the new contributions the firm expanded notably; it built a model factory in the Buenos Aires town of Cuatreros, expanded its presence in several European countries and even did so in South Africa.

The company had a chain of retail butcher shops in Buenos Aires headed by the well-known logo of a black cook with her red polka dot scarf and a ring with the letter "S" of Sansinena. Among the housewives was very popular the Recipe La Negra with the "thousand ways of cooking". In the pages of it was promoted the whole range of the products "La Negra".

S.O.VI-OLM