Brazil and the USA: Exploring Economic and Social Parallels

 

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 United States' economic involvement in this country began to increase dramatically in the 1870s. Beginning in the mid-1860s, advertisements in important newspapers show that US manufacturers were already entering the Brazilian market. We understand the scope.

Brazilian historiography focuses on the economic and business role of the British during the nineteenth century, including Rippy's Rivalry of the United States and British Investment, Manchester's British Preeminence, Graham's Britain, Paiva Abreu's 'As relações econômicas anglo-brasileiras' and 'British business in Brazil', Bethell's 'Britain and Latin America', Eakin's British Enterprise in Brazil, Smith's Illusions of Conflict, and Miller's 'Informal Empire'.

The amount of U.S. 

goods entering the country at this early time was quite little, especially when compared to the large-scale consumption of the 1920s626; also, Brazil's internal market was limited in size.627 As this chapter suggests, the decade of the 1870s should be viewed as a watershed moment in the history of American penetration in the Brazilian market for machinery and consumer products, a turning point that has not always received the credit it deserves in Brazilian history. On the contrary, an examination of the historiography reveals that most studies tend to focus on the growing importance of the United States' commercial presence in Brazil beginning in the final two decades of the nineteenth century and, more frequently, in the early and mid twentieth centuries.628 Despite the fact that British economic and financial involvement in Brazil began to decrease in the early 1870s, only a few scholars cite this decade as a watershed moment in Brazilian-US commercial relations and cultural interactions.629

This chapter will also demonstrate that the early business ties formed between Brazil and the United States throughout the nineteenth century played an important role in defining the history of images of the US in Brazil. The expansion of communications and trade with that country presented Brazilians with new transportation technology and the most recent improvements in urban infrastructure being constructed there. More frequent interaction with the United States included the arrival of locomotives, agricultural machinery, equipment, and tools, as well as

626 Stuart Ewen's Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Rots of Consumer Culture (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976) discusses large-scale production, consumption patterns, and the establishment of contemporary advertising in the United States beginning in the 1920s. and Leach, Land of Desire.

Consumer goods. 

This chapter looks at the early circumstances that led to Brazil creating regular interactions and trade with the United States, as well as the representations Brazilians made of US society throughout and after this process. It will demonstrate how images of the United States have shifted from mostly unfavorable to positive assessments in the perspective of Brazilian elites and urban consumers. In fact, during the first half of the century, the Brazilian leadership was usually uninterested in increasing trade ties and maintaining frequent communication with that country. Brazilians were accustomed to relying on consumer goods and machinery manufactured in Europe; during those decades, they did not see the development of communications with the United States as a real need: in addition to manufactures and equipment, Europe, particularly Britain and France, brought in news and information about developments in U.S. politics and society with their monthly cargoes. Until the 1850s, Brazilians linked US foreign policy with expansionist territorial annexation, which contributed to their reluctance to establish direct connection with the US. Nonetheless, after the mid-century, Brazilian statesmen's hostile attitudes about the United States began to wane, particularly after the Civil War. Beginning in the mid-1860s, a new consensus emerged in favor of a policy toward that country. During this decade, those committed to reform and modernization in Brazil began to point to the United States as the place where modern civilization was taking on a different, more advanced character than in Europe, with the United States becoming Brazil's traditional source of political and cultural inspiration, as well as the obligatory point of comparison.