ACTIVIST BIOLOGY LaTIN AMERICAN LANDSCAPES Christopher R. Boyer and Lise Sedrez series editors editorial board Guillermo Castro Herrera Jose Augusto Drummond Stefania Gallini Stuart McCook John R. McNeill Shawn Miller Cynthia Radding John Soluri REGINA HORTA DUARTE ACTIVIST BIOLOGY Th e National Museum, Politics, and Nation Building in Brazil Translated by Diane Grosklaus Whitty TUCSON The University of Arizona Press www.uapress.arizona.edu © 2016 by The Arizona Board of Regents Open-access edition published 2020 ISBN-13: 978-0-8165-3201-8 (cloth) ISBN-13: 978-0-8165-4170-6 (open-access e-book) The text of this book is licensed under the Creative Commons Atrribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivsatives 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means that the text may be used for non-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author. For details go to http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Cover design by Miriam Warren Cover photo of Agrias phalcidon phalcidon ab. atromarginata, courtesy of Notafly/ Wikimedia Originally published as A Biologia Militante: O Museu Nacional, especialização científica, divulgação do conhecimento e práticas científicas no Brasil (1926–1945) by Editora UFMG, 2010. Publication of this book is made possible in part by the proceeds of a permanent endowment created with the assistance of a Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal agency. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Duarte, Regina Horta, author. | Expanded version of (work): Duarte, Regina Horta. A biologia militante. Title: Activist biology : the National Museum, politics, and nation building in Brazil / Regina Horta Duarte ; translated by Diane Grosklaus Whitty. Other titles: Latin American landscapes. Description: Tucson : The University of Arizona Press, 2016. | Series: Latin American landscapes | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Revised and expanded version of A biologia militante : o Museu Nacional, especialização científica, divulgação do conhecimento e práticas científicas no Brasil 1926–1945. Identifiers: LCCN 2016007486 | ISBN 9780816532018 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Biology—Brazil—History—20th century. | Museu Nacional (Brazil) Classification: LCC QH305.2.B6 D8213 2016 | DDC 578.0981—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016007486 An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access for the public good. The Open Access ISBN for this book is 978-0-8165-4170-6. More information about the initiative and links to the Open Access version can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org. For Dora and Manoel, beloved parents For Tom, my oasis x CONTENTS List of Illustrations ix Preface and Acknowledgments xi Translator’s Note xiii Introduction 3 1 Activist Biology 16 2 A Miniature of the Fatherland 64 3 The Making of a Biologist 126 Conclusion 157 Timeline of Brazilian History (1889–1945) 161 Notes 165 Portuguese and English Names of Institutions and Events 207 Bibliography 213 Index 239 ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Shipment of hides and skins for export 21 2. “In the jungle of Mato Grosso, Alexandre Siemel, jaguar slayer” 22 3. Ad for hunting rifles 23 4. Ad for a women’s clothing store 25 5. Room where specimens were prepared, mounted, and classified by the Assistance Service for the Teaching of Natural History, 1929 78 6. Workshop of the Assistance Service for the Teaching of Natural History, 1929 79 7. Negatives for educational films, 1929 80 8. Print shop at the National Museum, 1929 81 9. Boy Scouts on a visit to the National Museum, December 1927 85 10. Teachers leading students on a class trip to the National Museum, 1930s 86 11. Anthropology exhibit hall, National Museum, 1929 87 12. Cover of the first issue of the Revista Nacional de Educação, 1932 91 13. Poster for the educational film Congorilla 92 14. Poster for the educational film Magic Carpet 93 15. Cover of an issue of Revista Nacional de Educação 95 16. Print from Viagem filosófica, by Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira 97 17. “Mello Leitão—Spider Webs,” from Revista Nacional de Educação 97 18. “Brazil and Its Borders,” map from Revista Nacional de Educação 99 X ILLUSTRATIONS 19. Map of population zones by Roquette-Pinto, from Revista Nacional de Educação 100 20. Literacy lesson, from Revista Nacional de Educação 106 21. Cover of A vida maravilhosa dos animais, by Mello Leitão 116 22. Cover of the first issue of the magazineUiára , 1937 129 23. Argentinean edition of La vida en la selva, by Mello Leitão 134 24a and b. Pages from “O livro de minha vida” showing lists of genera and species named in honor of Mello Leitão 135 25. Number of papers and articles published by Mello Leitão, 1909–51 141 26. Timeline 164 PREfaCE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS HIS BOOK IS A REVISED AND EXPANDED VERSION OF A Biologia Militante: O Museu Nacional, especialização científica, divulgação do con- Thecimento e práticas científicas no Brasil (1926–1945), published in 2010 by Editora UFMG. My overriding objective in undertaking these revisions was to bring concepts, argumentation, and the narrative itself into sharper focus. New primary and secondary sources were incorporated as I refined my conceptual- izations and analyses, lending greater cohesiveness and strength to the book’s overall argument. I expanded on my discussions of the historical, political, and social context, especially regarding the National Museum, the First Republic (1889–1930), and the Vargas era. I also added a timeline and a chronological table that delineates the phases of the Republic addressed in these pages— information that will be especially helpful to the non-Brazilian public. Expressing gratitude should be more than an act of mere formality, for it derives from the certainty that we are not alone. Over the years, I have re- lied on the immense support of many people, and my list of acknowledgments could be endless. I will begin with the public institutions in Brazil that wel- comed and supported me: the Escola Estadual José Bonifácio, where I learned to read; the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG); the Universidade Estadual de Campinas; the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientí- fico e Tecnológico (CNPq); and the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Es- tado de Minas Gerais. I am especially grateful to the CNPq, which funded this Xii PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS research, and to the Instituto de Estudos Avançados Transdisciplinares, where I had the privilege, as a resident scholar in 2008, of spending a period of study and intellectual fellowship that was vital to this project. I received invaluable help from Vilma Carvalho de Souza, of the Biblioteca Prof. Antônio Luiz Paixão; from the whole team at the Seção de Memória e Arquivo do Museu Nacional; from Hermínia Ferreira, of the Academia Bra- sileira de Ciências; from Juliana Amorim, of the Arquivo Múcio Leão at the Academia Brasileira de Letras; and from the staff at the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural in Montevideo. My thanks go as well to my colleagues and students and to the staff at the UFMG Department of History. My partici- pation in the Coleção Brasiliana research group, led by Eliana Dutra, greatly influenced my decision to research this particular topic—to all my brasilianos colleagues, a huge abraço. Lise Sedrez and Chris Boyer gave my work a warm welcome in the Univer- sity of Arizona Press’s Latin American Landscapes series. Kristen A. Buckles, also of the University of Arizona Press, was extremely zealous in her guidance of the editorial process. The reviewers of the original manuscript offered valu- able suggestions, and I am deeply indebted to them for their thoughtful read- ings. Diane Grosklaus Whitty translated the book, and I learned much from her about the elegance and exactitude of the English language. Her exacting, tireless, and skillful work greatly enhanced the final text. Our joint labors and discussions of details of the English version behind us, I realize I have a fine new friend and cohort. Any words of thanks to my family are far from enough: to my mother and father (for whom I’ll always be their little girl); to my brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews. To Tom, my lifelong love, who is always there for me with words of encouragement and affection. Life with my sons, Antonio and Ma- noel, has been a perpetual joy. They taught me to like Radiohead, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana and enjoy every last episode of Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones (guilt free), while I in turn introduced them to those inimitable old-timers: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and David Bowie. To you, my little boys—now so grown up and independent, off conquering your own worlds—I give thanks from the bottom of my heart. TRANSLATor’s NOTE HE BOOK YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ is far from a straightforward English version of the original Portuguese. Regina Horta Duarte made Ta series of revisions to the manuscript before delivering it to me, as she explains in the preface. Thanks to the rich collaborative relationship the author and I developed, I had the liberty to suggest other adjustments, always reviewed by Regina, for example, the rearrangement and relocation of paragraphs here and there, very minor cuts, a few notes to point out errors detected in primary sources. Citations of Foucault and Mayr in Portuguese were replaced by their classic English versions (a task Regina graciously insisted was hers), ensuring that the present audience has access to the most appropriate bibliography. The outcome is a highly domesticated text. In my view, the content itself abounds in foreignness, and I could best do my job by smoothing the reading process as much as possible. This at times led to what we might call “activist translation,” where I retained a semblance of invisibility while posing as the author.