Blacks in a Benevolent Framework

About a Chronicle from 1929

Abstract

In the 1920s, as theories of human races were being reshaped amid the spread of ideas on eugenics, the municipality of São José do Rio Preto, once a frontier area, became an important urban center in the Araraquarense region, benefiting from its status as the final stop of the Araraquara Railroad. The print culture that developed there was made possible by the arrival of a first generation of literate migrants who were informed by the racial theories then in vogue. This text aims to examine how society in Western São Paulo related itself to socially affluent blacks. By analyzing the 1929 Illustrated Album of the District of Rio Preto, in comparison to other printed materials, the paper examines the way in which socially established blacks are presented in the respective works and also the way in which blacks with some social standing presented themselves in São Paulo, Campinas, and Western São Paulo.