This presentation is based on research investigating the development of Rio de Janeiro’s graphic and publishing world in the 19th century, within the framework of the platform developed by the Documentar: Sources for Graphic Culture project (CNPq). The work focuses on the survey, spatialisation and analysis of the sector’s diverse activities, based on the systematic collection of sources from Brazilian libraries and archives, both digital and physical. The resulting catalogue, with over five thousand entries, forms the basis of a database that underpins the creation of a historical cartography of Rio de Janeiro’s graphic arts world. Building on this foundation, an initial georeferenced spatialisation of the data was carried out, focusing on the 1860s, bringing together around 500 entries distributed across different trades and activities: type foundries, printing presses, typography, lithography, printing, stationery, bookshops and bookbinding. The mapping enables the identification of networks of production, circulation and social interaction, highlighting the diversity of workshops, the profile of the agents involved, and the complex integration of printing practices into the urban fabric. By bringing together documentation scattered across different scales of analysis – from individual activity to trade networks – the study, grounded in the material dimension of print production methods, offers a collective tool for a more comprehensive understanding of the agents, spaces and social dynamics that shaped the history of print and the graphic arts in nineteenth-century Brazil.

COORDINATION

Débora Dias (CHAM)
João Costa (CHAM)

ORGANIZATION

CHAM / NOVA FCSH

Research Group Information, Reading, and Forms of Writing