James P. Woodard - Brazils Revolution in Commerce: Creating Consumer Capitalism in the American Century

Brazils Revolution in Commerce

Brazils Revolution in Commerce

Creating Consumer Capitalism in the American Century

JAMES P. WOODARD

The University of North Carolina Press

Chapel Hill

2020 The University of North Carolina Press

All rights reserved

Set in Adobe Text Pro by Westchester Publishing Services

Manufactured in the United States of America

The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Woodard, James P., 1975 author.

Title: Brazils revolution in commerce : creating consumer capitalism in the American century / James P. Woodard.

Description: Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019035097 | ISBN 9781469656366 (cloth) | ISBN 9781469656434 (paperback) | ISBN 9781469656373 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: CapitalismBrazil. | Consumption (Economics)Brazil. | BrazilEconomic conditions20th century. | BrazilCommerceUnited States. | United StatesCommerceBrazil. | BrazilCivilizationAmerican influences. | BrazilRelationsUnited States. | BrazilSocial life and customs20th century. | United StatesRelationsBrazil.

Classification: LCC HC187 .W636 2020 | DDC 381.0981dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019035097

Cover illustration: Chico Albuquerque, Campanha para automvel Willys-Overland (1962). Chico Albuquerque / Convnio Museu da Imagem e do SomSP / Instituto Moreira Salles Collection.

For Louis A. Prez Jr.

Scholar, Mentor, and Friend

They like almost all our products, from hot dogs to automobiles, from chain stores to trailer camps. They want to make Brazil another United States of America: with more motion picture shows, radio and television, modern plumbing, electric refrigerators and everything else we have.

Nations Business, January 1945

They only know American methods and know nothing of Brazilian peculiarities. We know Brazilian peculiarities and also American methods, which are not an obscure subject matter and which are at our disposal in libraries and bookstores.

Auriclio Penteado (1951)

We accept the business philosophy that has communication with the masses as its greatest premise. We repeat for the hundredth time: we are an advertising-minded people.

Manoel de Vasconcellos (1956)

They are agents of the economic development of the Country, for it is well known that advertising is one of the most useful instruments in the expansion of productive activities today. They learned that difficult art with the Americans and transmitted their experience to other Brazilians.

Boletim Cambial, August 1959

We are beginning to be a people of consumers. The workers are beginning to have a, shall we say, middle-class consciousness. They are beginning to become consumers and the class struggle is nothing more than an outdated slogan.

Carlos Lacerda (1964)

If we continue on the same path, if we are able to transmit to the Brazilians an ever-greater repertoire of needs; if we are able to mobilize our own energies to attend to these needs, then we will create an internal market that will sustain the Brazilian economy.

Antonio Delfim Netto (1971)

It is they.

They who?

The white enemies.

I dont understand.

Wait.

Jos de Alencar, O Guaran i (1857), pt. 2, chap. 12

Who is this we, Kemosabe?

Americanism, n.d.