You are standing on Presidente Getúlio Vargas Avenue, both constructed and named in 1944 by the statesman himself, a year before the end of the Estado Novo government. In order to build the avenue, countless tenement buildings, shacks, and historical churches such as San Pedro dos Clérigos and Santo Domingo were demolished. Vargas found inspiration in Germany’s Nazi party, known at the time for their rigorous mathematical standards.
In 1930, Getúlio Vargas decreed the coup d’etat that put an end to the First Brazilian Republic, known as the Old Republic or the Republic of Coffee with Milk, in which politicians from the states of Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo took turns controlling the presidency. The coup took place during a period of global economic crisis, as Wall Street’s crash in October 1929 led to a marked decrease in coffee exports. That same year, the São Paulo oligarchy ended its alliance with its Minas Gerais counterpart and nominated Júlio Prestes from São Paulo as a candidate for the presidency. The government of Minas Gerais supported the opposition candidate, Getúlio Vargas.
In March of 1930, after Júlio Prestes won the election, Vargas led a coup with support from the military to stop the inauguration. “Getúlio Vargas is the new Brazilian powerbroker. He assumed the Presidency of the Republic with the Revolution of ’30,” reads Jornal do Século, a special publication run by Jornal do Brasil. The newspaper, which supported the coup, emphasized how, ” popular demonstrations support the revolutionaries in Rio”. The paper reads: “Vargas was received with applause on the streets of Rio, and his men tied their horses to the obelisk on Central Avenue.”
On November 10, 1937, Vargas closed the National Congress and Legislative Assembly and announced the new Constitution of 1937, which took the place of the 1934 constitution, a document that required direct elections in 1938. With fascist inspiration, the new constitution suspended all political rights, abolished civil society organizations, and gave total power of executive control to the president.
After the Constitution of 1937, Vargas remained in power until 1945.