Paranaguá, cidade portuária: entre a cidade sonhada e a cidade real"

Abstract

This research historically problematize the city of Paranaguá as a place of practices, including the discursive ones, focusing the narrow relation between the urban everyday, the Paranaguá-Curitiba rail road and the harbor, and the investments in urban reforms and the ideals of modernity. The time clipping focuses the period of the mid 19th century when Paranaguá loses the politic-administrative representativeness in Paraná to Curitiba which was chosen to be the capital of the recently-made province, and in 1931, when it was created the Instituto Histórico e Geográfico de Paranaguá (Geographic and Hitorical Intitute of Paranaguá). In this period the city loses the title of the most important city in Paraná and ends up being called Princesa do Litoral (The Shore Princess), mostly affirming itself as a harbor city. The problematization of the public health system and the investments in the remolding of the urban space, as the implementation of the piped water and the sewage system, during the administration of the major Caetano Munhoz da Rocha, in the beginning of the 20th century, are analyzed in the second chapter. The emerging and the circulation of a speech in the press which identifies Paranaguá as the city of the já teve (it has ever had), cidade de belas tradições (City of the beautiful traditions), are the theme of the third chapter. This nostalgic feeling related to the previous one affirmed not only a colonial past of Portuguese roots but also a past characterized by outbreaks of progress. The building of the rail road and the investments in the urban space are constantly remembered, and also the implementation of the piped water and the sewage system in the beginning of the 20th century. I order to accomplish this study, sources as local newspapers and magazines, government reports and messages and records from the Câmara Municipal (Municipal Cabinet) were used