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‘Changing the cultural landscape’: English engineers, American missionaries, and the YMCA bring sports to Brazil – the 1870s to the 1930s

2011; Routledge; Volume: 28; Issue: 17 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09523367.2011.627200

1743-9035

Claudia Guedes,

Historical Education Studies Worldwide

Abstract On 2 October 2009 the New York Times announced that the IOC had selected Rio de Janeiro as the site of the 2016 Olympic Games – the first to take place in South America. If it had not been for English and Scottish engineers, who had brought futebol (soccer) to Brazil in the late 1800s, and other sports that American missionaries and the YMCA introduced this might never had occurred. Following the Civil War (1861–65) American interest in spreading the Christian gospel abroad grew considerably. In 1871 Presbyterian minister George Whitehall Chamberlain and his wife founded at São Paulo, Brazil ‘the American School’ (today known as Mackenzie College). Games like basketball as well as a more liberal system of education for girls (formerly largely excluded from schools) as well as for boys soon would be introduced. The noted Brazilian educator Fernando de Azevedo has written positively about these developments. Also interested in spreading its influence, in 1891 the International Committee of the YMCA of North America sent Myron Augustus Clark to São Paulo, where he set about training many native-born Brazilians. The Playground Association of America (established in 1906) sought to do likewise. Henry J. Sims, one of several other YMCA leaders who arrived from the United States, and Fred C. Brown, who was recruited to be Executive Secretary of Rio de Janeiro’s exclusive Fluminese Football Club, helped lay the foundations for the Latin American Games that were first held at Rio de Janeiro in 1922. This article examines how developments such as these did much to ‘change the cultural landscape’ in Brazil. Keywords: sport historyYMCABrazilPresbyterian missionaries Notes 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_at_the_Summer_Olympics. 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIVB_World_Championship#Women. 3. Barman, Citizen Emperor; Azevedo, Brazilian Culture. 4. Tesche and Rambo, ‘Reconstructing the Fatherland’; Nicolini, Tietê: O Rio de Esporte. 5. Guedes, Escola de Educação Física. 6. James A. Mangan has written and edited a number of insightful books regarding the introduction of English sports to other countries. See for example, Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism; Mangan and Da Costa, Sport in Latin American Society. 7. Caldeira, Mauá, Empresário do Império. 8. Schwarcz, O Espetáculo das Raças. 9. MacLachlan, A History of Modern Brazil, 179–81. 10. See for example, Da Costa, Atlas do Esporte no Brasil. 11. Gardner et al., Creation of the American Empire, vol. I, pp. 191–203. 12. Cited in Handbook of the American Republics (Bulletin no. 11, Bureau of the American Republics, Feb. 1891), 5–6. 13. Hutchinson, Report on Trade Conditions in Brazil, 9. 14. It is interesting that although the lengthy report was about Brazil, Hutchinson chose to refer to ‘the yoke of Spain’. 15. Da Costa, Formação Profissional em Educação Fisica. For an overview of education in Brazil during the late 1800s and early 1900s see Freyre, Order and Progress. 16. http://www.theopedia.com/George_Whitehill_Chamberlain. 17. See Thompson et al., Education in the State of São Paulo. 18. Love, São Paulo in the Brazilian Federation. 19. Garcez, O Mackenzie. 20. Thompson et al., Education in the State of São Paulo, 41–3. 21. Mackenzie College was very successful and continues today as Mackenzie Presbyterian University: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universidade_Presbiteriana_Mackenzie. See also Brief Description of Work of Mackenzie College, S. Paulo, Brazil, S. A., October 1902, available at http://books.google.com/books?id=TGZHAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false. 22. Revista Comemorativa dos Cem Anos do Basquetebol. See also Mota, ‘À Procura das Origens do Mackenzie’; Arquivos da Universidade Mackenzie, São Paulo, Brazil (hereafter Arquivos da Universidade Mackenzie). 23. Minutes of the Brazil Mission of the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America Magazine 4 (Dec. 1900), 5–10, Arquivos da Universidade Mackenzie. 24. Reyes, The Two Americas, 123–4. 25. Chamberlain, letter to Robert McBurney, 26 March 1890. Chamberlain Correspondenc,. Arquivos da Universidade Mackenzie. 26. See for example Ferreira, História da Igreja Presbiteriana do Brasil; Levine, The History of Brazil, 77–96. 27. Ferreira, História da Igreja Presbiteriana do Brasil. 28. Ibid. 29. Born in Buffalo, New York in 1866, Clark had worked as secretary for YMCAs in Minnesota and Missouri after graduating from Macalester College in St Paul, Minnesota: Kautz Family YMCA Archives, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota (hereafter Kautz Family YMCA Archives). 30. Johnson, The History of YMCA Physical Education, 166–73; 249–53. See also YMCA Biographical Files, Kautz Family YMCA Archives. 31. Johnson, The History of YMCA Physical Education, 167. 32. Relatorio Annual da Associação Christã de Moços do Rio de Janeiro, 1893–1894 (Rio de Janeiro: Aldina, 1894), Kautz Family YMCA Archives. 33. Decimo Relatorio Annual da Associação Christã de Moços do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1902–1903 (Rio de Janeiro: Casa Publicadora Baptita, 1903), Kautz Family YMCA Archives. 34. Johnson, The History of YMCA Physical Education, 169–70; Relatorio Annual da Associação Christã de Moços do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1913, 10–11, Kautz Family YMCA Archives. 35. The statement is included in the section dealing with the physical department of the Relatorio Annual da Associação Christã de Moços do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1913. Report 32, Box 4; YMCA Papers, Arquivos da Universidade Mackenzie. 36. Ibid., 10–11; 19–21. 37. H.J. Sims, Physical Director, Young Men's Christian Association, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Annual Report for the Year Ending 30 Sept. 1915 (typescript), Kautz Family YMCA Archives. 38. Ibid. 39. The YMCA won first place. 40. Regarding the earlier years of basketball and the YMCA in Brazil see Sims, ‘Histórico do Basket Ball no Brasil’. 41. Sims, Annual Report for the Year Ending 30 Sept. 1915. With regard to lectures on hygiene and physical education, the number had increased from 830 to 3,521. 42. In the YMCA Annual Report for the year ending 30 Sept. 1915 Sims referred approvingly to these and the other accomplishments that were under way. 43. Tucker, ‘Rio de Janeiro's First Playground’, 382–5. 44. Ibid. 45. Ibid. 46. Ibid. 47. V. P. Bowe, ‘Survey 1920–24: Questionnaire for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’, Kautz Family YMCA Archives. 48. Johnson, The History of YMCA Physical Education, 168–9. 49. In 1922 James S. Summers, secretary of the YMCA's International Committee, arrived in Montevideo: Johnson, The History of YMCA Physical Education, 250–2. 50. Johnson, The History of YMCA Physical Education, 250–1; Sims. ‘From “Zicunate” to the “Instituto Technico” in Brazil. 51. Ibid. In zicunate only the head could be used. 52. Hopkins, ‘Fifteen Years of Association Physical Education’. Located in what was then the aristocratic neighbourhood of Laranjeiras, the Fluminense Football Club was formed by sons of well-established Brazilian families who had learned about the game while they were studying abroad. 53. Hopkins, ‘Fifteen Years of Association Physical Education’. 54. Johnson, The History of YMCA Physical Education, 169. 55. Hopkins, ‘The Playground Movement in Uruguay’, 439–41; 450; 456–57. 56. Rodman, ‘Recreation in Latin America’, 265–8. Apparently Rodman was one of those Progressive Era women who ‘campaigned for a wide range of issues, from the establishment of juvenile courts and daily inspection for “pure” milk production, to municipal playgrounds and public school kindergartens’. She subsequently would write about her experiences in a book entitled Through Opening Doors. These comments about Rodman are from Engh, ‘Mary Juila Workman’, 3–19. 57. The Guinle family often received invitations to attend functions at clubs formed by English immigrants. 58. A useful account of these matters may be found in Napoleão, Fluminese Football Club. The name Fluminense derives from the Latin Flumen or ‘river’. The original intent had been to call it the Rio Football Club. 59. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_at_the_Olympics. 60. Torres, ‘The Latin American “Olympic Explosion”’. 61. ‘South American Olympic Games’, New York Times, 25 Aug. 1920. 62. Araujo, As Instituicoes Brasileiras da Era Vargas. Regarding Getúlio Vargas and the Estado Novo regime see also Dulles, Vargas of Brazil. 63. Mario Ribeiro Cantarino Filho, ‘Associação Cristã de Moços: Movimento Voluntário da Educação Física no Brasil’, cited in DaCosta, Atlas do Esporte no Brasil. 64. See, for example, http://www.acfdobrasil.org.br; http://www.ymca.int/423.0int. 65. Fisher, ‘The Work of the Young Men's Christian Association’. 66. Rodman, ‘Recreation in Latin America’.