Carioca labor world: hat makers in Mangueira Hat Factory (1920-1940)

Abstract

The article aims at analyzing the labor world of hat making in Rio de Janeiro as it was pictured in the experience of the Mangueira Hat Factory, in the three decades following the death of its founder, inserted in the context of the political, economic and social transformations of the “Vargas Era”. Our sources were the lists of Factory employees from 1931 to 1954, newspapers, inventories, wills, and a master’s instruction book published by the factory in 1947, as well as photographs and oral statements. Based on this documentary collection, I intend to understand their most concrete experiences in the daily environment of the factory, where complex social, ethnic, power and gender relations were reproduced. Hat makers, men and women, were, in their own way, protagonists of a process that had been overwhelming in terms of demands, threats and struggles for the conquest, guarantee and preservation of their rights.