Name/Title
StereographEntry/Object ID
2023.055.3.0249Description
A black and white stereograph. Image is an aerial view of Rio de Janerio. Above the image "T272 (Star)" is printed, below the image "V21901T Rio de Janero, the Metropolis of Brazil, S.E. toward Sugarloaf Mountain and the Bay." is printed, to the left of the image "Keystone View Company Copyrighted, Underwood & Underwood, Inc. Manufacturers MADE IN U.S.A. Publishers" is printed, to the right of the image "Meadville, Pa., New York, N. Y., Chicago, Ill., London, England." is printed. On the reverse the following is printed:
V21901
RIO DE JANEIRO, THE METROPOLIS OF BRAZIL
We are standing on a hilltop between the mountains and a placid arm of the bay. The suburb of Botafogo lies directly below us. The steep rock before us, 1,200 feet in height, was named "Sugarloaf" by the early Portuguese explorers. Rio de Janeiro is, next to Buenos Aires, the largest city in Soth America and is the largest city in the world where Portuguese is spoken. It has more people than all the cities of Portugal combined. It is the captial of Brazil and the metropolis of half the people of the South American continent. It is, moreover, the chief financial and industiral city of what is now one of the greatest, though undeveloped, industrial empires in the world. Brazil is larger than the United States or all Europe.
Rio de Janeiro is about half the size of Chicago, and much more beautiful. Poets sing about the clearness of the Bay of Rio. When the Portuguese first entered these waters on January 1, 1502, they thought they had entered a river and so called it "Rio de Janeiro," meaning River of January. Thirty years later they established a town at this point. In 1762 it was made the capital of Brazil and was the residence of the Portuguese cout from 1808 to 1821. In 1822 Brazil declared its independence and without much opposition became an empire. After several civil rebellions a provisional government was established in 1889, and in 1891 the constitution of the United States of Brazil was proclaimed.
Rio has a mixed population. The upper classes are of Portuguese descent, but the middle and lower classes have intermarried with native Indians, imported negroes and other dark-skinned races, so that the majority of the population is of mixed descent.
Copyright by The Keystone View CompanyCollection
Photograph Collection