The Generation of '80 was the governing elite in Argentina from 1880 to 1916. Members of the oligarchy of the provinces and the country's capital, they first joined the League of Governors, and then the National Autonomist Party, a fusion formed from the two dominating parties of the prior period, the Autonomist Party of Adolfo Alsina and the National Party of Nicolás Avellaneda. These two parties, along with Bartolomé Mitre's Nationalist Party, were the three branches into which the Unitarian Party had divided. In 1880, General Julio Argentino Roca, leader of the Conquest of the Desert and framer of the Generation and its model of government, launched his candidacy for president.
El General Roca ante el Congreso Nacional (c. 1886–1887) by Juan Manuel Blanes
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, author of Civilización y barbarie and key figure in the Generation of '37, later President of Argentina
Field in the Pampas region, which produced a vast quantity of Argentine exports under the policies of the Generation of '80
Image: Ernesto de la Cárcova Sin pan y sin trabajo, 1894
National Autonomist Party
The National Autonomist Party was the ruling political party of Argentina from 1874 to 1916.
Julio A. Roca, principal figure of the National Autonomist Party
