Dickmann, Adolfo (1882–1938)

Adolfo Dickmann, Argentine Socialist councilman and congressman, was born on September 1, 1882, in Finland. Dickmann immigrated as a youth with his family to Entre Ríos Province, Argentina, in the late nineteenth century. After joining the Socialist Party in 1900, he received his degree in dentistry from the University of Buenos Aires in 1905. He served first on the city council of Morón, province of Buenos Aires, and then in 1914 was elected to the provincial legislature, where he introduced legislation to create a provincial department of labor, to modify the tax on inheritances, and to regulate child and female labor.

In 1919 Dickmann was elected to the city council of the federal capital and then served two terms as a Socialist representative to the national Chamber of Deputies (1922–1930). After the military coup of 1930 that ousted democratic president Hipólito Irigoyen from office, Dickmann returned to Congress for the third time as a national deputy (1932–1936). A prominent member of the Socialist delegation in the national Congress, he was associated with legislation intended to improve the management of municipal administration and to better the living and working conditions of employees, workers, and rural laborers. However, the popular strength of the Unión Cívica Radical between 1916 and 1930 and the electoral fraud perpetrated by the conservatives after the coup of 1930 kept the Socialist Party as a minor political force. Himself a naturalized citizen, Dickmann wrote several works on immigration and nationalism (Nacionalismo y socialismo, 1933) as well as on tax policy, collective bargaining, and state control of the petroleum industry (En defensa del petróleo nacional, 1932).

See alsoArgentina, Political Parties: Radical Party (UCR); Argentina, Political Parties: Socialist Party; Irigoyen, Hipólito.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Work

Dickmann, Adolfo. En defensa del petróleo nacional y por la dignidad de la función pública. Buenos Aires: Durry y Kaplan, 1932.

Secondary Works

Suriano, Juan, comp. La cuestión social en Argentina, 1870–1943. Buenos Aires: La Colmena, 2000.

Sanguinetti, Horacio. Los socialistas independientes. Buenos Aires: Editorial de Belgrano, 1981.

                                        Richard J. Walter

                                       Vicente Palermo