Try to imagine in the ruins of the house, number 253, the marks of an era in which the politics of beautification led to popular revolt.
The Pereira Passos reforms changed the face of Rio de Janeiro. Once known as the “City of Death”, it became known as the “Marvelous City”. However, the reforms violently expelled residents from their homes, knocking down between 700 and 3,000 buildings and leading to a great increase in the value of downtown real estate, leading to dramatic gentrification. Those that once lived in the downtown tenements were invited to use the wood from the demolished homes to build shacks on the surrounding hills, such as Morro da Providência. Thus, the favelas that mark the Rio de Janeiro skyline were born through mayoral decree.
The actions of Pereira Passos completed the sanitation project headed by Dr. Oswaldo Cruz, director of Public Health Services. Oswaldo Cruz instituted the campaigns against yellow fever and smallpox, the latter being a mandatory vaccination enforced by public agents, who invaded residents’ homes in order to administer the shots. The demolitions began in 1904. In November of the same year, mandatory vaccination against smallpox was imposed by the federal government.
The disgust of the population with the way they were being “sanitized” and forcibly expelled was so great that it led to the Vaccine Revolt, a popular uprising that led to barricades, depredation, and death in downtown Rio.