“Yankee expedition comes to study carnahuba”: S.C. Johnson & Son., Fieldwork, and the Scientific and Commercial Exploration of Carnauba Wax in Brazil (1935)

Abstract

This work analyses the Carnauba Expedition, a commercial and scientific exploration trip carried out by the American company SC Johnson & Son to Brazil in 1935. The expedition proposed to investigate the largest areas of the carnauba palm (Copernicia cerifera Mart.), a tree native to the Brazilian semi-arid region, as a baseline for the technical-scientific exploration of a raw material produced by this plant: carnauba wax. Through the analysis of the expedition report and official documents issued by the Brazilian Government in a context of careful inspection and control of the activities of foreigners in the country, it appears that the expedition became possible through the close articulation between the company and the Brazilian government, permeated by political, scientific, and economic interests. It is argued that the Carnauba Expedition and the effort to produce the large-scale carnauba wax arising from the growing approach between science and industry is another episode of the history of the exploitation of natural resources in Brazil in the first half of the 20th century.

Keywords:
carnauba wax; scientific expedition; Northeast Brazil; natural sciences; policy