Electricity in the kitchen: hygiene, rationality and consumption in São Paulo (1920-1960)

Abstract

This project is a part of the Master's research Electricity in the kitchen: hygiene,rationality and consumption in São Paulo (1920-1960) developed in the Social HistoryPostgraduate Program at the University of São Paulo. The aim is to study the use ofelectrical appliances in the house kitchens of São Paulo during the first half of the 20thcentury. In São Paulo, the concepts of hygiene and rationality associated with the idea ofmaterial progress acted in urban reforms and in the industrialization process andcontributed to tension the social and work relationship between homemakers and maids.The performance of United States appliance manufacturers and advertisingagencies in Brazil were responsible for spreading a foreign model of "modern kitchen" inLatin America. In view of the difference between the daily life of São Paulo citizens andthe US standard of domesticity, middle class and consumption, the study of the processof production and circulation of advertising planned for this internship will allow us tounderstand the importance of adapting visual and rhetorical discourses for the appropriation of artifacts in different realities.