Far beyond the consumption of bread: living conditions in Rio de Janeiro in the 1870s

Abstract

The article presents, through various sources - periodicals, post-mortem inventories, voter qualification lists, novels -, the living conditions of Court workers, in order to show that despite the difficulties there was a margin for the consumption of superfluous products and even accumulation of goods, and that their choices in the market are not results of a pure economic logic, but, as Giovanni Levi argued, reflect important aspects of the culture of these groups.

Keywords:
Second Empire; Rio de Janeiro; Living conditions; Slavery; Material culture