Patterns of Enterprise in São Paulo: Preliminary Analysis of a Late Nineteenth-Century City

Abstract

Although the important roles and functions of Latin American cities have received recognition and discussion in historical writing, there exist few empirically grounded and detailed investigations of individual urban centers. Thus, reviewing the nature of historical research on Latin American urbanization, Sofer and Szuchman (1979: 113, 119) noted the dearth of quantitative investigations of the social dimensions of urban existence, as well as a reliance on aggregate data as opposed to such primary documentation as manuscript census returns, notarial records, and judicial assessments. They conclude that “historians have been reticent to explore the social data in primary documentation and join them with non-quantifiable sources of information in order to reach an existential understanding of the Latin American past.” Similarly, Socolow and Johnson (1981: 51) have pointed to the need for research concentrating on the “social, economic, and physical structure of individual cities and groups of cities.”