The construction of a modern ethos in Rio de Janeiro: illustrated magazines and published objects

Abstract

Through the analysis of objects and technological devices published in advertisements in Kósmos, an illustrated magazine and important documentary support from the first years of the 20th century, this article sought to understand how Rio society assimilated the modernization of the Federal Capital, what effects it produced interaction with cars, electric trams, heavy machines, and other modernisms that went beyond those of an urban order, represented in the press of the time. For the study, all editions of the six years of the magazine Kósmos were analyzed, sometimes making use of intertextual comparisons with the narrative of other publications, such as Revista da Semana. As demonstrated in the study, the hypothesis is that, as “windows” for the unders-tanding of modern culture, the technological devices and other objects published on the pages of the press brought more than revelations of how the reconfiguration of public space took place, of new ways of seeing and being in relation to modernity. With their own symbols, they helped in the aspiration and construction of a new moral value, character and a new lifestyle for the people of Rio.