3: RESEARCH

(Additional information about the publications mentioned in this part can be found in the General Bibliography, Part 7.)

Literature already exists about tramways in Brazil. But it is fragmentary, unknown outside Brazil, difficult to find even in Brazil and it has not been organized. Some material can be found in North America and Europe and the author is fortunate to have easy access to the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress in Washington, whose collections and indexes are unsurpassed by those of any other institutions. Material was also found at the Engineering Societies Library in New York, at the Organization of American States Library in Washington, and at the libraries of New York University, Columbia University and Harvard University. In Brazil the author pursued research at the Arquivo Nacional and Biblioteca Nacional in Rio de Janeiro, and at public and university libraries in the cities concerned.

The first problem in this study - which may never be solved completely - was to find out where tramways existed. Operations in the large cities are well known, but it is more difficult to find information about small towns, especially where animal operations, which often used second-hand equipment, were not electrified. Tramways were discovered in unexpected places and it was tempting to assume that streetcars ran everywhere. But that was not the case. Electric systems existed in very small towns, e.g., Bom Sucesso and Sacramento (Minas Gerais state), which had populations of only about 3,000. But it is known that some very large cities, e.g., Araraquara and Ribeirão Preto (São Paulo state), with populations of almost 100,000, never had even a mulecar line. Small tram operations no doubt existed that were not discovered.

GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS. An early and unexpected source of information is the series of booklets issued by the Brazilian government at the various international industrial expositions during the 19th century. A pamphlet published (in several editions in several languages) for the Vienna Exhibition of 1873 lists 14 tramways in seven Brazilian cities. Another pamphlet issued at the Philadelphia Exhibition of 1876 describes 33 operations in 14 cities. The standard source of information about public utilities in Brazil in the 19th century is the series of Relatórios issued by the Ministério da Agricultura, Comércio e Obras Públicas from 1862 until 1909. Tramway data concentrate on the Federal District and are concerned more with legal contracts than with operation - a problem with most government literature - but the Relatórios are useful and are the primary source of information about the pioneer Tijuca electric tramway in Rio de Janeiro. From 1912 through 1959 tramway data were provided in the Anuário Estatístico issued yearly by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatístico. These tables, however, concentrate on capital cities and ignore many systems that were operating. State and city governments also published reports that mention tramways but generally only when the tramways were municipally owned, and most of these journals are difficult to locate today. In 1933 the U.S. Bureau of Foreign & Domestic Commerce published a World Survey of Foreign Railways which lists most of the tramway operations in Brazil, including several ignored by the IBGE. USBFDC issued supplements to its WSFR in 1937 and summarized data in its 1942 Latin American Transportation Survey. [USBFDC conducted numerous railway surveys. Vols. 5, 16, 32, 39 and 93 of its Trade Promotion Series, published between 1925 and 1930, describe tramways in every Latin American country except Brazil. A Brazil volume seems never to have been issued.] It is not known if the governments of other countries attempted similar investigations.

ALMANACS. The Almanak Laemmert, published yearly in Rio de Janeiro from 1844 until 1940, is highly regarded by historians and contains valuable tramway data, especially for the capital. Unfortunately no complete collection seems to exist, not even in Brazil.

GUIDEBOOKS. Dozens of guides to Rio de Janeiro have been published in several languages over the years and many describe tram routes. Guidebooks for other cities are less plentiful, but a 1909 guide to South America by Heinrich Reimers describes operations in many towns. The South American Handbook, published annually in England since 1922, makes occasional tramway references. A series of unusual railroad guidebooks published between 1934 and 1945 by a Brazilian, Max de Vasconcelos, describes tram facilities at railroad stations and furnishes the only printed map the author found of the electric tramway in Guaratinguetá.

FINANCIAL REPORTS. Periodicals such as the South American Journal, the South American Year Book and Garcke's Manual of Electrical Undertakings, published in London, and Moody's Industrial Manuals, published in New York, review the finances of the Brazilian tramway companies managed by North Americans and Europeans. The Brazilian Review, published (in English) in Rio de Janeiro, contains occasional tram data and Frederick M. Halsey's Investments in Latin America and the British West Indies, issued by the U.S. Bureau of Foreign & Domestic Commerce in 1918, considers 15 companies. Such texts report only on the large systems in the major cities and provide no historical information. Annual reports for the large American and Canadian conglomerates were also consulted.

TRADE JOURNALS. The American, English, German and French periodicals that traced the development of the tramway industry from 1890 until 1940 generally ignore Latin America. It is scandalous that nothing was published in any of them about the four electric tram systems - including the first on the continent - that the General Electric Company installed in Brazil in the 1890s. The first article about a Brazilian tramway was a piece in Elektrotechnische Zeitschrift in 1898 about the Siemens installation in Salvador. The first discussion of an American installation, in Manaus, appeared in the English publication, The Electrician, in 1900. Street Railway Journal, the American periodical, finally published articles about Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in 1900, but without historical information and without mention of GE's pioneer work a decade earlier. The English periodical, Tramway & Railway World, published a feature article on the first English installation in Belém in 1907, but nothing about the tram systems that the English subsequently installed in six other cities. Scattered news notices about Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo can be found in the English Electrical Review and Electrical Engineer, in the American Electrical World and in corresponding French and German publications, but little about other systems. The Brazilian trade journal, Brazil-Ferro-Carril, published in Rio de Janeiro from 1910 until 1950, contains occasional news items but, incredibly, no feature articles about tramways and nothing about the construction of trams in Brazil. Brill Magazine, published in Philadelphia from 1907 until 1927, describes the cars that J. G. Brill built for ten cities in Brazil, but ignores equipment that it built during this period for seven other Brazilian cities. The trade journals provided the first objective descriptions of tramways in Brazil, with occasional historical background. But at best they report only for the first two decades of this century, and if one had to rely on them for tramway history one would have a very lopsided view.

TRAMWAY BOOKS. The first comprehensive tramway study in Brazil - the first real tram literature - was a 2-volume, 835-page history of transportation in Rio de Janeiro published by a Brazilian named Noronha Santos in 1934. With 210 pages on trams, such a book at that date would be remarkable anywhere and it is astounding to discover it in Latin America. The author's data, unfortunately, end in 1921. Between 1951 and 1972 Charles Julius Dunlop, Secretary of the Canadian tramway company in Rio de Janeiro and later President of the Ferro-Carril Carioca, published a series of books on the tramways of that city, including an extraordinary 344-page history of the Botanical Garden system. Dunlop reveals valuable information on Rio's Tijuca tramway and the development of the street railway in Santa Teresa, but his statistics end in 1914. Small books and pamphlets were published about tramway operations in other cities, notably São Carlos in 1954, Sorocaba in 1956 and Curitiba in 1980. In recent years Waldemar Corrêa Stiel of São Paulo has attempted to chronicle the history of urban transportation in the entire country. His 1978 História dos Transportes Coletivos em São Paulo describes tram and bus lines in São Paulo state. His História do Transporte Urbano no Brasil, published in 1984, describes operations in all 23 states, including São Paulo. Stiel's books were a major source of information about animal operations in the smaller cities, but his texts concentrate on early corporate history and say little about later developments and the crucial involvement of foreigners.

TOWN HISTORIES. Many histories of Brazilian cities contain a chapter or paragraph on tramways, and by browsing through them the author discovered systems in Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, Cataguases, Itabaiana and other places that were not mentioned elsewhere. Some town histories, unfortunately, mention railroads, highways, street lighting, telephone, telegraph and sewer lines, but ignore tramways that were operating. Illustrations in some books show tram rails and overhead wire, but no tram. Histories of small towns often lack alphabetical indexes and are difficult to use.

FAN MAGAZINES. The tram enthusiast publications that proliferated after World War II printed occasional news items on Brazilian systems and provide important information about abandonments. But long texts are rare: the Dutch journal, Streck en Stadsvervoer, published a 3-page illustrated article about São Paulo in 1950; Headlights, the U.S. publication, featured another article on São Paulo in 1958; and articles about Rio's Santa Teresa line and the Campos do Jordão tramway appeared in the English Modern Tramway in 1977. The most extraordinary text in a fan magazine was a l0-page report on a "Visit to Brazil" by Raymond De Groote published in Modern Tramway Review in 1964. De Groote's article covers only electric lines operating at that time, but contains excellent maps and photographs, and may be considered the first overall survey of tramways in Brazil.

NEWSPAPERS. Only a few Brazilian newspapers can be found in libraries outside Brazil and most of them are too recent to report tramways. Old newspapers found in Brazil, especially in small cities, were a valuable source of information on inauguration and abandonment dates, often the most difficult information to obtain.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS. The New Brazil, a lavishly produced book by Marie Wright published in Philadelphia in 1909, contains tram data and photographs and Twentieth Century Impressions of Brazil, an extraordinary 1070-page volume by Reginald Lloyd, published in both English and Portuguese versions in London in 1913, contains thousands of photographs and several articles about tramways. Two volumes by J. Fred Rippy, Latin America and the Industrial Age (1944) and British Investments in Latin America (1959), sound better than they are: Rippy surveys all public utilities for perhaps the first time, but most of his tramway statistics are inaccurate. A 1967 Ph.D. dissertation by Henry Leslie Robinson about American & Foreign Power, the U.S. company which controlled 13 Brazilian tram systems, and a 1972 biography of tramway titan Percival Farquhar by Charles Gauld contain useful information. Earl Clark's directories of World Electric Lines, published in 1964, 1967 and 1971, provide information on abandonment dates that is not available elsewhere. In 1977 Petrobrás, the journal of Brazil's national oil company, featured an unusual 8-page survey of electric tram operations with information that had not been published before.

MAPS. The author tried to find authentic printed maps of all Brazilian electric tramway systems. Dozens of street maps are available from every period showing routes in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and other large cities. But smaller cities are difficult and printed maps showing tram routes in Aracaju and Piraju were never located: information for these systems came from interviews with former company employees. Topographical maps issued by the Serviço Geográphico do Exército between 1922 and 1946 and by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística after 1950 confirm commercial maps and fill many gaps. Most of the maps of Brazilian tramways were found at the Library of Congress in Washington.

COMPANY RECORDS. Correspondence, roster lists, maintenance charts, accident reports and other unpublished documents that were the property of the tramway companies have largely disappeared. Most seem to have been discarded when the companies municipalized and abandoned rail service in the 1950s and 60s. Records for Brazilian Traction, the Canadian corporation that operated trams in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Santos, have survived. But the author was able to find only a few of the records of American & Foreign Power (Electric Bond & Share), which controlled lines in 13 other cities. The General Electric Company and the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, which outfitted many systems, are uncooperative in historic research. But the grandchildren of James Mitchell, the General Electric engineer who installed the first trolley lines in Brazil, let the author examine a trunkload of documents (that would probably interest his former employer). Ironically, the Siemens Museum in Germany, whose archives were heavily damaged by the Americans during the Second War, was considerate and helpful. Records of most of the tramcar builders have been lost, including those of the John Stephenson Company in New York, which supplied the first vehicles to many countries in Latin America. Exceptions include the M.A.N. Company in Germany, which sent information about its cars, St. Louis Car Company, whose order lists have been published, and J. G. Brill, whose photographs and order books are preserved at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Tramway historian Harold E. Cox has computerized these data and furnished the author with a tabulation of orders for Brazil. J. H. Price in England sent the author a list of United Electric and Brush orders.

OTHER UNPUBLISHED MATERIAL. The author has collected old postcards of Latin America, the principal source of early tram photographs, and acquired hundreds of modern photographs from tram enthusiasts throughout the world who visited Brazil during the 1940s, 50s and 60s. "Trip reports" written by these travelers were also useful. The author has an extensive international correspondance.

PERSONAL VISITS. What could not be found outside Brazil was sought at the source. Latin Americans do not reply to written inquiries about trams, especially from abroad, so letter-writing was a waste of time. [The problem is not new. In a 1916 survey the Brazilian Ministério da Agricultura, Indústria e Comércio sent questionnaires to the mayors of 183 cities asking about trams; only 49, or about 27%, replied. 411 questionnaires were mailed in a second attempt to gather information in 1917; only 83, or 20%, responded. (See p. 196 of this group's Relatório dos Trabalhos dos Anos de 1916 e 1917, Rio de Janeiro, 1921.)] The author made eleven journeys to Brazil and visited 55 of the hundred cities in which tramways operated. He visited all 41 cities in which electric trams operated, from Manaus to Rio Grande and including such remote spots as Bom Sucesso, Sacramento and Piraju. Information was gathered, photographs were copied, in libraries and newspaper files, at mayor's offices and bus garages, from local historians, in museums and in private collections. The author measured track gauge wherever old rails could be found. Reception by Brazilians in these towns, without exception, was magnanimous: the same librarians and civil servants who ignored written inquiries disrupted their lives completely to assist the author during his visit. In the course of his research the author made personal friends who continued to help his project and sent data up to press time. Their names are recorded at the beginning of this book.

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