Memories of the working class in downtown Porto Alegre with Frederico Duarte Bartz

The "Memories of the Working Class in Downtown Porto Alegre" route aims to disseminate the history of the world of work, especially the labor movement, in downtown Porto Alegre. Although historically marked by the presence of the city's traditional elite, the Historic Center was also a place for working men and women, who lived in alleys or remote streets, worked in small workshops or in commerce, and also organized their associations and protests. Thus, the proposed walking tour explores places significant to the history of the working class, but whose memory has been erased over time.

Frederico Duarte Bartz holds a Master's and PhD in History from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and works as an Educational Affairs Technician at the UFRGS School of Architecture. Throughout his academic career, he has studied the labor movement in Rio Grande do Sul and Brazil. In recent years, he has sought to disseminate the history of the working class through historical trajectories, coordinating the Caminhos Operários (Workers' Paths) and collaborating with the Caminhos da Educação (Education Paths) and Caminhos de Imigrantes (Immigrant Paths) in Porto Alegre.

Walk Synopsis:

1. Praça Dom Feliciano, where the Porto-alegrense Artistic Club was founded in 1887, which was one of the first workers' organizations in the city;

2. The Casa dos Azulejos, at Rua dos Andradas, no. 1527, where the newspaper Gazetinha (of the socialists) operated in 1897 and in the 1950s, was the headquarters of the Engraving Club, which brought together artists linked to the PCB, whose theme was the life of the working class;

3. The Salão Cosmopolita is located at Rua Dr. Flores, no. 185 (where Ponto Frio is today), it was a center of workers' activities and was a central location for workers' mobilizations in the 1890s;

4. Beco do Rosário, on what is now Avenida Otávio Rocha, was a place of residence for the black community, characterized as a place of housing for workers, but it was destroyed in the 1920s to make way for modern buildings;

5. Praça XV, where we will talk about the Public Market as a place of work and sociability for the working class;

6. Avenida Borges de Medeiros was opened with the destruction of the old Beco General Paranhos, a street marked by the presence of tenements and popular taverns;

7. The Spanish Society, at Rua Andadrade Neves, no. 81, which was a place of anti-fascist resistance in the 1930s, where Spanish anarchist workers who opposed Franco's regime met and received refugees from Francoist Spain;

8. Praça da Alfândega is our final point, as a paradigmatic location, as it was from there that the first May 1st march in Brazil began in 1892 and where the largest workers' strike of the early 20th century, the General Strike of 1917, was launched.

Photo: Gabriel Siebenberg