This thesis analyzed material on Mexican railroad development before 1876 to determine what principles underlay public action in this area. Only significant or recurring concessions concerning connecting Mexico City and Veracruz, transcontinental communication, and tying the United States and Mexico by rail were studied, since they provided the best means of tracing public action over an extended period of time.

This thesis presents a study of events in the life of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, a lyric poetess and dramatist during the Romantic period, as motivating forces in her literary career. As might be expected in the case of a true representative of the Romantic period, Avellaneda's passions and personal life are reflected in all of her works. She uses human and divine love as the main themes throughout all of her literary production, especially in her lyric poetry and the four tragedies chosen for this study: Munio Alfonso (1844), El Príncipe de Viana (1844), Saúl (1849), and Baltasar (1858).