Brazil, the land of rubber
Brazil, the land of rubber presents the Brazilian section of the 1912 International Rubber Exhibition in New York, where the Federal Government devoted ten thousand square feet of the Balcony Floor to its national industry. The book guides the reader through the court: the Rubber Colossus reclining over the Amazon, towering pyramids and balls of caoutchouc, life-sized models of native workmen, maps, statistics, and Dr. Pinto demonstrating his smokeless coagulation of latex. It closes with the official roster of commissioners and an introduction extolling the Amazon valley as the world's greatest storehouse of native rubber.
Part exhibition catalogue, part promotional appeal, the volume captures Brazil at the height of the rubber boom, courting foreign capital with promises of remunerative investment and inexhaustible forests. Its themes—natural abundance, government planning through "The Protection of Rubber," and scientific cultivation of native species—make it a revealing document of early-twentieth-century economic ambition and the fragile prosperity that plantation competition would soon undo.
How it begins
Brazil occupies no less than ten thousand square feet of space on the Balcony Floor. The Exhibit is specially comprehensive. There is a fine archway to each entrance to the court dominated by the arms of the Federal Government. An Information Bureau is provided, at which all enquiries as to Brazilian rubber will be answered. The walls are hung with statistics and maps of the country. Close by are the offices of the Brazilian Commissioners and a refreshment kiosk, where the Federal Government dispenses Brazilian coffee to visitors. One of the first things to strike the eye is the huge recumbent figure of the Rubber Colossus, overlooking the mighty Amazon and its innumerable tributaries, all of them highways of the rubber collecting industry. From this point the visitor may, with the assistance of a number of pictures, 22 feet by 12 feet, take a bird’s eye view tour up the Amazon. Alongside these pictures is a unique collection from the different States of Brazil of rubber and other products, the preponderance of the rubber industry being illustrated by a fine pyramid of caoutchouc. Dotted here and there are life-sized models of Brazilian workmen in their native costumes. Arriving at the entrance to the Amazonas Section we find Dr.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain.