PHYSICAL CULTURE AND OUTDOOR LIFE: THE REINVENTION OF THE COAST OF FORTALEZA (1920-1940)

Abstract

Important and unprecedented changes take place in the Brazilian coast during the first decades of the twentieth century. Our study examines these changes, focusing on the coast of Fortaleza, the numerous leisure activities that happened in that space as well as those oriented to education and health. A new architecture also appears in that space in the 1920s and 1930s, shaping the coast with bungalows, houses, commercial establishments as well as sport and recreational clubs. Hygienist discourses and practices associated with an outdoor lifestyle exhort people not only to admire the coast but also to enjoy its benefits. The present article analyzes the relationship between the reinvention of Fortaleza’s coastal environment and the increasingly frequent discourses about a physical culture. As for methodology, we carried out a documentary research using the following sources: newspapers, magazines, literary texts, reports of memorialists and images from the period.

Keywords:
History; Sports; Nature