The origins of advertising in Brazil from a black perspective: visual representations up to the early twentieth century

Abstract

This study examines, from a racialized perspective, how advertising developed in Brazil between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It focuses on two central aspects: advertisements for enslaved people and stereotypes of Black people conveyed in advertising imagery, in the rare instances when such representations appeared. The aim is to present an overview of the early days of advertising in Brazil, identifying types of advertisements that have largely been overlooked in studies of the history of advertising in Brazil, thereby contributing to a process of historical reparation. The research problem stems precisely from this omission, which erases the entire process of dehumanization of Black bodies present in such advertisements; this highlights the need to broaden the debate around these images, which, although they are neither seen nor criticized, form part of the iconographic record of representations of Black people in Brazil. The study hypothesizes that this omission is part of an epistemological project that naturalizes whiteness as the subject of communication while rendering Black presence invisible, in order to preserve a narrative of modernity divorced from the history of slavery. Using a documentary analysis methodology, the study examines advertisements for enslaved people and advertising materials produced up to the early 20th century, observing language patterns, stereotypes, and representational shifts. The results indicate that Brazilian advertising originated within the logic of slavery and reproduced negative stereotypes throughout the first half of the 20th century, stereotypes that became embedded in a racialized regime of representation of Black people in Brazil.