Retranslating the Brazilian Imperial Project: O Novo Mundo’s Depictions of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition

Abstract

As the first world’s fair held in the Americas, the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia allowed the hemisphere’s nations to stake disparate claims to modernity through unequal displays of natural resources, new technologies, and art. Existing scholarship on the Centennial Exhibition and its importance for Brazil touches only briefly on how representations of Brazil at the fair were communicated to the Brazilian public. This article claims that Brazil’s participation at the fair created translations of the nation for a foreign public that were retranslated for Brazilian readers through O Novo Mundo, a periodical published in New York from 1870 to 1879. By reading O Novo Mundo alongside archival documentation and histories of the Centennial Exhibition, I contend that the periodical recognized Brazil’s desire for modernity, critiqued how Brazilian officials wanted the nation to be seen, and questioned how models of progress from the United States would unfold in Brazil.