Engineers and farmers in a railroad of Caipira Capitals: The Araraquara railroad and the contours of the great public service company in the First Republic

Abstract

This research aims at analyzing the action of farmers and engineers in the history of the Araraquara Railroad (Estrada de Ferro Araraquara), a railway that linked the city of Araraquara to the western backwoods of Sao Paulo in the early 20th century, Sao Jose do Rio Preto. The company, founded in 1896 with essentially local capital during a period of difficulties for the groups linked to the coffee production complex, had a short and tumultuous life as a private company, being object of diverse interests in an environment of great economic speculation. In that context, the actions of a group of engineers stand our; by taking over the control of shares, they promoted a calamitous administration, taking huge loans at home and abroad, which lead to bankruptcy and later expropriation of the company by the State in 1919, in a turbulent process involving large investors from Brazil and Europe. Based on sources such as the Relatorios de Exercicios (E. F. Araraquara Exercises Reports) and several newspapers of that time, this paper intends to understand the difficulties of the railway trajectory, the transformation in the profile of the shareholders, as well as the conditions that enabled the group of engineers to take control and lead the company to bankruptcy, a process permeated by strategies and negotiations that elucidate the contours of the large utility company in the First Republic.