The times of the city: Barbarity and civilization in Album Illustrado da Comarca De Rio Preto (1927-1929)

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the representation of the city Rio Preto, Brasil, in the Album Illustrado da Comarca de Rio Preto (1927-1929), a work organized by the journalist Abílio Abrunhosa Cavalheiro in the context of the frenetic occupation of space and the founding of cities experienced by the western backwoods of São Paulo at the beginning of the last century. Common publications since the end of the 19th century, city almanacs became illustrated albums in the following century, luxury items that constituted true advertisements for the flourishing hinterland cities. Such works sought to highlight the stage of economic and social development of the cities, marks of progress and civilization, radically breaking with the past, which should be forgotten. In that context, Cavalheiro’s album stands out, which had the difficult mission of reversing the poor image of the city that existed until then. With a skillful narrative and using the most modern imaging and printing techniques of the period, Cavalheiro organizes a weighty work, with more than a thousand pages and two thousand photographs, where he seeks, from a critical study, to articulate, in a unique historical process, a barbaric past to a civilized present, imagining a future of glory for the city, in a horizon of expectations provided by the whirlwind of transformations experienced by the inhabitants of Rio Preto.

Keywords:
almanacs; civilization; barbarism; past; present; future