The construction of domestic comfort: daily life, consumption and distinction among the middle sectors of São Paulo (1870-1920)

• Grant number: 17/25133-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: March 01, 2018
• End date: July 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning
• Principal Investigator: Ana Lucia Duarte Lanna
• Grantee: Pedro Beresin Schleder Ferreira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The main objective of the research is to understand the intricate processes of modernization and metropolization in the city of São Paulo through with the construction of a culture of domestic comfort among the middle sectors. The study period comprises from the middle of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century, when the city undergoes impressive transformations in its most diverse spheres. The central hypothesis relates the construction of desire by this peculiar form of comfort to the three intertwined processes: the performance of agents interested in promoting a culture of consumption through the diffusion of customs and the desire for objects of comfort; the daily appropriation by the middle classes of these apparatuses as instruments to conquer and stabilize social positions; and the mobilization of the practices and materialities of this comfort by these same sectors as a mechanism of distinction in relation to the workers and of approach to the elites. For this, in addition to the bibliographic research, we will use the analysis of specific documentation, namely: ads and articles of variety magazines and newspapers; advertising of department stores; manuals of domestic life and civility; requests for private works; wills and post-mortem inventories, among others.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

FERREIRA, Pedro Beresin Schleder. The home of the \good man\: masculinity, \civilization\ and domesticity in Brazil (1870-1920). 2023. Doctoral Thesis - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU/SBI) São Paulo.