The House, the Street, and the Barracks: Reform and Honorable Masculine Social Space in Brazil, 1864-1945

Abstract

T v H E complaints, civil disobedience, rhetoric, and humor generated by nearly a century of army recruitment reforms in Brazil illuminate a conflictual transition in conceptions of honor, masculinity, penology, citizenship, national identity, and the proper limits of public power. This transition accelerated in the l910S when an influential group of educated Brazilians reached a consensus that military conscription would help resolve a variety of threats to national strength and unity, ranging from regionalism to poor hygiene, racial degeneration, and national defense. Meanwhile, the government and proconscription civic organizations had to convince the respectable poor that army enlisted service was honorable. Efforts to alter public perceptions of honorable manhood proved to be essential to execute a draft and other progressive reforms.' Before Brazil abolished slavery in 1888, military impressment reinforced sharp distinctions between law-abiding and criminal, legitimate and ille-