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Brazil and the USA: Similarities in Urban Development

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  Introduction My dissertation focused on the Brazilian production and reception of representations of the United States as a growing model of modern society in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Based on the analysis of parliamentary debates, newspaper articles, diplomatic correspondence, books, students' journals, and textual and pictorial advertisements in newspapers, among other historical documents, my findings indicate that the United States emerged as a new axis of reflection on the meaning of modernity for Brazilians well before the historical break traditionally chosen by historians as a landmark in the development of the United States as a modern world. By doing so, a gap in historiography has been identified: there has been no comprehensive examination of the United States' influence in Brazil previous to that historical watershed, as well as prior to Brazil's first republican regime's open relationship with the US government. My findings also challen

Brazil and the USA: Similarities in Urban Development

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  Introduction My dissertation focused on the Brazilian production and reception of representations of the United States as a growing model of modern society in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Based on the analysis of parliamentary debates, newspaper articles, diplomatic correspondence, books, students' journals, and textual and pictorial advertisements in newspapers, among other historical documents, my findings indicate that the United States emerged as a new axis of reflection on the meaning of modernity for Brazilians well before the historical break traditionally chosen by historians as a landmark in the development of the United States as a modern world. By doing so, a gap in historiography has been identified: there has been no comprehensive examination of the United States' influence in Brazil previous to that historical watershed, as well as prior to Brazil's first republican regime's open relationship with the US government. My findings also challen

Exploring the Socioeconomic Similarities Between Brazil and the USA

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  Consuming the USA The second half of the century was a period of global communication and transportation innovation, during which the expansion of steamship lines in the United States inspired tremendous interest in Brazil. Among the transportation innovations introduced to this country during this century, steamboat navigation and the establishment of a national railway system sparked the most excitement among Brazilian liberal thinkers. Along with steam transportation, the US railway system drew appreciation from liberal elites. In the mid-1860s, the mood in Brazil was that: Even though the [U.S.] railway industry never received governmental protection, it remains the most significant achievement of Americans over other peoples in the globe.  As early as the mid-1860s, liberal philosophers began to see a link between laissez faire ideology, the transformative potential of new technology, and the rise of heavy industry, as well as the image of the United States as the new fountain o

Brazil and the USA: Parallel Paths in History

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  A Aurora Brazileira, Syracuse, 1873-1877. A Aurora Brazileira was another of the monthly periodicals published in the decade of the 1870s in the United States by a group of Brazilians living there  country. This publication is unique in that it was developed by students; its editors were civil and mechanical engineering students from the University of Cornell. In 1875, they resolved to devote the journal entirely to scientific issues; interestingly, several contemporaries saw A Aurora Brazileira as Brazil's first true scientific publication.548 The journal's name referred to the United States, which was regarded as 'the light that attracted so many compatriots in search of more proper teaching than the current Brazilian scenario can supply', according to the first issue, which was published in October 1873.549 Unfortunately, we do not know the complete number of Brazilians studying at US universities over the course of our studies. Nonetheless, despite our limited kno

Cultural Convergences Between Brazil and the USA

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  Steamship lines serve the United States. Brazil's early gravitation toward the orbit of US production. Introduction Although most historians of the British Empire have overlooked Britain's participation in Latin America, specialists from this region and others have produced a significant number of publications on the subject. Brazilianists' interest with Britain's role in comprehending Brazil's evolution during the nineteenth century is surely a case in point. However, empirical study on British influence in Latin America has generally focused on economic and business relationships rather than political or social issues. As described in the introduction of this thesis, this tendency holds true in the instance of Brazil. This chapter argues that Brazilian economic history has overlooked the economic relevance and cultural influence of the early US commercial presence in Brazil, focusing solely on British supremacy in the country. According to our sources, the Unite

What Do Brazil and the USA Have in Common?

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  José Silvestre Rebello, the Brazilian representative to the United States, began negotiations in New York in 1825 to purchase a steam vessel from the New York South America Steam Boat Association, which had recently been formed.  One of Rebello's primary responsibilities was to purchase riverboats suited for navigating the Amazon River. However, the strategies suggested in Rio de Janeiro contrasted with Amazonian interests. On that occasion, the governor of the Amazonian province of Pará refused to allow Rebello's efforts to procure a ship built for the service of Amazon waters to advance up the river.633 After that first attempt, it would be forty-one years before the Amazon fluvial system was opened up for global travel. Despite the failure of this early effort, American merchants remained the most actively engaged foreigners in striving to reduce the barriers to accessing the Amazon basin's riches. Matthew Fontaine Maury, a Virginia-born, self-educated physicist who se

The Cultural Ties That Bind Brazil and the USA

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  The diagnosis: Brazilian perceptions of Brazil seen via the mirror of the United States During the 1870s, there was a dispute in high political circles over how to attract a steady flow of foreign workers to meet labor demands in Central-South Brazil's quickly developing coffee districts. This discussion arose in the backdrop of growing emancipationist pressure from both abroad and at home, a movement that took tangible form in September 1871 with the passage of the Law of the Free Birth.414 Two years after the law was approved, the Minister of Agriculture, Commerce, and Public Works, José Fernandes da Costa Pereira Junior, commissioned João Cardoso de Menezes e Souza, a deputy from the Northern province of Goiás, to devise a plan to attract foreigners to the Brazilian lands to fulfill the dynamic coffee sector's insatiable demand for workers. The assumption was that a constant flow of foreign workers would help to develop the still latent public and private factors of agricu

Brazil and the USA: Exploring Economic and Social Parallels

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  Steamship lines serve the United States. Brazil's early gravitation toward the orbit of US production. Introduction Although most historians of the British Empire have overlooked Britain's participation in Latin America, specialists from this region and others have produced a significant number of publications on the subject. Brazilianists' interest with Britain's role in comprehending Brazil's evolution during the nineteenth century is surely a case in point. However, empirical study on British influence in Latin America has generally focused on economic and business relationships rather than political or social issues. As described in the introduction of this thesis, this tendency holds true in the instance of Brazil.6 This chapter argues that Brazilian economic history has overlooked the economic relevance and cultural influence of the early US commercial presence in Brazil, focusing solely on British supremacy in the country. According to our sources, the Unit

Brazil and the USA: Similarities in Workforce Dynamics

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  Wage inequality decreased in 15 of the 16 Latin American countries during the initial decade of the 20th century Brazil serves as an illustration: the Gini index decreased from 0.48 to 0.44 between 2002 and 2015 (Messina and Silva 2021; Almeida, Ehrl, and Moreira 2021). However, the diminished urban, gender, and racial wage gaps were predominantly the result of one-time level effects that were difficult to replicate (Ferreira, Firpo, and Messina 2017; Firpo and Portella 2019). Moreover, income redistribution programs that were more straightforward to implement and enjoyed widespread societal support had already been established during a period of robust economic growth. Due to this, Holland and Schneider (2017) have contended that the "easy" period of income redistribution in Latin America may have concluded. If this is the case, the political and labor market obstacles to reducing inequality will be even more formidable. The current outlook for Brazil is anything but optim

Brazil and U.S.: Partnership or Rivalry?

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  President Barack Obama is getting ready to meet with his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, later this month. One of the most important questions that his administration needs to answer is how the US and Brazil can improve their bilateral relations while also being partners and rivals in hemispheric and global affairs. In the United States, Brazil doesn't get as much attention as its "BRIC" peers, Russia, India, and China. However, with a population of almost 200 million, Brazil has a lot of strengths. The country makes more than a trillion dollars a year in gross domestic product. After ten years of strong growth driven by exports of goods and services, new oil fields have been found that could make Brazil one of the top ten oil suppliers in the world. Brazil already has the biggest biofuel business in the world. Beyond the numbers, Brazil has become a major player in a wide range of global problems and has grown its influence in the region A

Cultural Connections: Brazil and the USA

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  The Second World War and the Changing North American Focus In the lead-up to World War II, the United States government was acutely aware of the necessity for some form of cultural exchange with Brazil. Vargas' regime, which transitioned to fascism and radical nationalism in the mid-1930s, acquired weapons from Germany after being rejected by the United States. However, Brazilian elites felt a stronger cultural connection to the Allies, and the country possessed significant natural resources that could be traded with the allied nations at highly advantageous prices. In 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt of the United States addressed the Brazilian Congress. Roosevelt addresses the shift in American policies regarding topics such as the United States' relationship with Cuba, the symbiotic relationship Roosevelt aimed to establish with Brazil through his "Good Neighbor" policy, America's aspiration for Brazil to modernize, and Brazilian nationalism. It has been an