In the 1910s, some of Rio de Janeiro's most renowned intellectuals and philanthropists, known as the reformers, launched proposals for offering assistance to the poor, drawn in part from the debate then underway in Europe about alternative ways of fighting poverty. This analysis explores how these reformers received ideas proposed or implemented in Europe and how they adapted them to Brazilian reality, advocating measures intended to ameliorate problems related to Brazil's socalled social question.
philanthropy; poverty; charity; assistance; Brazil