Reduto de São José: história e memória de um bairro operário (1920-1940)

Abstract

Reduto is an area next to the centre of the city of Belém that appeared in the second half of the XVIII century with the construction of a military fortification. It was effectively occupied during the nineteenth century, when it lived a time of intense commercial activity resulted of the rubber economy. In the first decade of the XX century with the introduction of a project of modernization some works appeared in the city, and they forced a new structuring of the urban space. While the rest of the city was getting beauty, the area of Reduto, to answer the capitalist interests of the exporting economy, was suffering with changes of its original space: the levelling of its dock and the break of its dynamic commerce. However, new space forms were appearing in the district. Occupying a convenient position, the immediate edge bay, Reduto became an attractive area for the installation of factories and it was little by little looking like an industrial district.Employees, traders and businessmen of several nationalities, or just workers looking for jobs gave to Reduto, until the middle of twentieth century, peculiar characteristics that had been marked on the collective imagination and are still present now a days in the memory of its old residents.