The implantation of telephony in Belém do Pará: the reflexes of modernity for the population (1881 and 1889)

Abstract

This article analyzes the process of deployment of telephony in Belem in the years1881-1889. At the same time, it shows the context saving the rubber which was essential for this process. Belém became the spill way port rubber production, it had an increased tax revenue to state coffers. What enabled investments in major public works such as urban reforms in education, health, public transport, attracting the so-called "progress and modernity."One of the signs of that modernity was the telephone, which boosted the market for goods and services in the city, bringing air of modernity to the local elite of the time.