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Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires: Public Space and Public Consciousness in Fin-de-Siècle Latin America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Jeffrey D. Needell
Jeffrey D. Needell
Affiliation:
University of Florida
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Extract

The Parisian Faubourg Saint Germain and perhaps the Rue de la Paix and the boulevards seemed the adequate measure of luxury to all of the snobs. The old colonial shell of the Latin American cities little approximated such scenery. The example of Baron de Haussmann and his destructive example strengthened the decision of the new bourgeoisies who wished to erase the past, and some cities began to transform their physiognomy: a sumptuous avenue, a park, a carriage promenade, a luxurious theater, modern architecture revealed that decision even when they were not always able to banish the ghost of the old city. But the bourgeoisies could nourish their illusions by facing one another in the sophisticated atmosphere of an exclusive club or a deluxe restaurant. There they anticipated the steps that would transmute “the great village” into a modern metropolis.

—José Luis Romero

Type
Constructing Spaces
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , July 1995 , pp. 519 - 540
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1995

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References

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36 Quoted, in La Nación, 8 May 1883,Google Scholar quoted in Varela, Beccar, Torquato de Alvear, 552.Google Scholar

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44 Needell, , “Carioca Belle Époque,” 397,Google Scholar and the correspondence cited in notes 30 and 31 (p. 414) and note 32 (p. 416), passim. On Pereira Passos' appointment in 1902, see the sources cited there in note 34 (p. 416).

45 Quoted in Edmundo, Luis [da Costa], O Rio de Janeiro do meu tempo, 5 vols. (Rio de Janeiro: Conquista, 1957), I.25.Google Scholar

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54 See Ibid., 36–51.

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59 We have seen the porteno response above; for more of the Carioca, see Needell, , “Carioca Belle Époque,” 403–10, passim.Google Scholar Note especially that more sensitive contemporaries were uneasy with these Europhile metamorphoses: Men of letters, in particular, registered both critical distance and nostalgia. See, for example, for Aires, Buenos, Grandmontagne, Francisco, Teodoro Foronda (1896);Google ScholarLopez's, La Gran aldea (cited earlier);Google Scholar or Martel, Julián [pseudonym for Miro, José Maria], La bolsa (1891).Google Scholar For Rio, see Needell, , “Rio de Janeiro,” 94–97,Google Scholar and some of the essays in Rio's, Joāo doPsychologia urbana (1911)Google Scholar or Vida vertiginosa (1911), or [Afonso Henriques de] Barreto's, LimaMorte e vida de M. J. Gonzaga de Sá (1919), and so forth.Google Scholar

60 For the Argentine case, see Sargent, , Greater Buenos Aires, 21–25, 89, 120;Google ScholarScobie, , Buenos Aires, 110–22, 125–350Google Scholar For the Brazilian, , Needell, Tropical Belle Époque, 26, 36–45, 151–3.Google Scholar

61 For Buenos Aires, see Scobie, , Buenos Aires, 114–135;Google ScholarSargent, , Greater Buenos Aires, 23–25, 79–82;Google Scholar for Rio, Needell, , Tropical Belle Époque, 23, 26, 141–3, 151–3. Note especially that Scobie refers to the Neo-Classical as “Italianesque,” pointing to the importance of Italians in the decoration of elite housing of the mid-nineteenth century. My own research indicates that, whether carried out by Italians or no (and, in Rio, just as in Buenos Aires, it often was), the style derived from Paris's École des Beaux-Arts.Google Scholar

62 See Scobie, , Buenos Aires, and ch. 3,Google Scholarpassim; Sargent, , Greater Buenos Aires, 21–25; for the elite's political travails, see chapter 3 in Scobie's Buenos Aires and the McGann, Richard, and Rock citations in note 42 above.Google Scholar

63 See Needell, , Tropical Belle Époque, 19–22, chs. 2,3 especially 117–24, 151–3. Note especially that the intra-elite differences observed earlier turned on regional conflicts and the nature of the national government's role–the Carioca elite, unlike the porteno, did not participate in these struggles so much as it functioned as the post-consensus, consecrated circle of those who triumphed in such conflicts.Google Scholar

64 Ibid., 22–26, 151–3.

65 For Buenos Aires, see Sargent, , Greater Buenos Aires, 31–33, 65, 82, 83, 85–89;Google ScholarScobie, , Buenos Aires, 135–59.Google Scholar For Rio, see Needell, , “Revolta Contra Vacina,” 249–62Google Scholar and, on disease among the Carioca poor, Adamo, Samuel, “The Broken Promise” (Ph.D. disser., History Department, University of New Mexico, 1983),Google Scholar ch.4, and Costa, Nilson do Rosário, “Estado e politicas de saude pública (1889–1930)” (M. A. thesis, Instituto Universitá do de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro, 1983).Google Scholar Note especially that, to the credit of both Alvear and Pereira Passos, each attempted to carry out rational systems of housing reform and construction to benefit the poor, neither, however, was able to arrange for sufficient backing to make an effective difference. The need for drastic solutions to demographic problems is clear in the population figures. The population of Buenos Aires increased more than sixfold in just 40 years, growing from 1870, to (1870) to 547,000 (1890) to 1,314,000 (1910): the population of Rio increased over threefold in 36 years from 235,000 (1870) to 523,000 (1890) to 811,000 (1906). My sources are Sargent, , Greater Buenos Aires, 120;Google ScholarNeedell, , Tropical Belle Époque, 241.Google Scholar

66 Needell, , “Revolta Contra Vacina”;Google ScholarNeedell, , “Carioca Belle Époque,” 406–10.Google Scholar

67 Scobie, , Buenos Aires, 135–59Google Scholar and ch. 5, passim; Sargent, , Greater Buenos Aires.Google Scholar

68 Scobie, , Buenos Aires, 114–5. 146–8;Google ScholarNeedell, , Tropical Belle Époque, 152–3;Google ScholarNeedell, , “Revolta Contra Vacina,” 252–2.Google Scholar