There is no reference to Rosario in "Tango: the Art History of Love", a thoroughly researched and footnoted book.
Note that
Until the 1850s Rosario was a small village of 3,000 inhabitants, with its port banned from foreign trade by an 1841 decree of
Juan Manuel de Rosas. On
5 August 1852 Rosario was declared a city after a request by
Justo José de Urquiza, who also opened up international trade. By 1880, Rosario had become the first export outlet of Argentina and by 1887 it had about 50,000 inhabitants. It was even declared the federal capital on three occasions, but each time this was vetoed by the Executive Branch.
In the last 15 years of the nineteenth century, the city more than doubled its population, in part due to
immigration.
Meanwhile the mixing of African and European cultures that would produce tango had been under way for decades in Buenos Aires.
Buenos Aires, by the 1920s, was a favoured destination for immigrants from Europe, as well as from Argentina's provinces and neighbouring countries. The impact of the
economic crisis forced many farmers and other countryside workers to relocate to the outskirts of the larger cities, resulting in the creation of the first
villas miserias (shanty towns), leading to extensive social problems which contrasted sharply with Argentina's image as a country of riches. Thus, the
population of Buenos Aires jumped from 1.5 million inhabitants in 1914 to 3.5 million in 1935.
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Looks like there were about 250,000 people in BA around 1890.
This doen't mean that there weren't ANY contributions at any time from there, but ....
