The history of the automobile industry in Brazil is inextricably linked to the country's attempts to modernize and liberalize, Joel Wolfe, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, told about 40 people in a speech at the Joukowsky Forum last night.
Wolfe's book, "Autos and Progress: The Brazilian Search for Modernity," grew out of his students' questions about the country. The book is a "reinterpretation of 20th century Brazil," he said.
"Automobility is the lens through which I look at Brazil's struggle to become modern," Wolfe said. Brazil's 2002 election of a former auto worker as the country's president demonstrates the importance of the industry, he added.
Wolfe described the automobile industry's transformation of Brazil, starting with the arrival of factories in the 1920s. At the time, Brazil was not a democracy and elites did not want to allow the poor and uneducated to participate in the government, Wolfe said. But leaders hoped that by bringing in the auto industry, they could "radically transform" the lower class into a middle class that could participate in politics in a way the elites could allow, he said.
In 1927, Henry Ford was given a chunk of land the size of Connecticut for an automobile factory in Brazil. In addition to creating jobs, Ford also brought free schools, health care and clothes and a culture of consumerism to the rural, less-developed areas of the country. Brazilians began to believe they could become modern because they were doing jobs that Americans were doing, he said.
Ford's message that the workers should be paid enough to be able to buy what they produce brought "incredible hope to people," Wolfe said. It also gave rise to an increasingly sexist culture in which the men went to work and the women stayed at home to raise the children. People thought auto plants were going to "civilize people," Wolfe said, and "reshape the nation and reshape Brazilians."
Wolfe called the belief that auto workers were different - educated, literate consumers - "the national myth." The national media embraced these workers and people began to believe that Brazil had a "mature enough working class to sustain a democracy," he said.
But the idea that cars could modernize and democratize Brazilian society ended in failure with the coup in 1964, which led to 21 years of oppression in the country, Wolfe added. In addition, no one thought about the downside of a rapid move to modernity, he said. Wolfe blamed the auto industry for the nation's pollution, dependence on foreign oil, immigration of the rural poor to the wealthier cities and a spoiling of the beauty of the Amazon by roads.
Wolfe's lecture was punctuated with frequent jokes and laughter from the audience.
Michelle Vanderploeg '12 said that what Wolfe discussed was "very relevant." She said she had lived in South America and knew something about modern times, but said it was "interesting to get the historical perspective."
