Railroads, Coffee, and the Growth of Big Business in São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

R AILROADS came to Latin America in the mid-nineteenth century along with other innovations born of the Industrial Revolution. Most railway hardware came from England, and most construction was underwritten by British capital and supervised, at least initially, by British engineers. The majority of lines serviced export trades, and both single traces and more elaborate nets typically projected from port-city matrices into the producing hinterlands. These lines generally met immediate objectives of delivering goods to market but failed to realize the long-range dreams of Latin American promoters who believed the innovation would automatically bequeath to their countries what it presumably had given to Europe and North America, namely territorial integration and flourishing industrial economies. These expectations remained unfulfilled as Latin American railroads were built to expedite exports and not to establish systems of internal communication. And, far from diversifying and industrializing national economies, they tended at first to reinforce and extend agricultural export orientations.' Nonetheless, the innovation had many important consequences. Railroad building was an enterprise of unprecedented economic and technological proportions which perforce required new financial and business strategies and structures. This essay examines the demands