Trilhos na selva o dia a dia dos trabalhadores na ferrovia madeira mamore

Trilhos na selva is the story about the construction of the Madeira Mamoré railroad, and the daily life of those who built it. A casual discovery by two American researchers shone new light on the lives of the Madeira Mamoré workers. The railroad was built in the Amazon between 1907 and 1912 and received the nickname of the devil s railroad or the railroad of death , due to the many casualties during its construction. Upon studying the presence of the ex confederates in Brazil, Gary and Rose Neeleman had access to the belongings of an American immigrant who had worked on the railroad. Amongst them, there was something precious unpublished photos and copies of The Porto Velho Marconigram, a newspaper written and edited by American workers on site. Until then, the only iconographical material available on the subject was the set of photographs by Dana Merrill, both at the Museu Paulista da Universidade de São Paulo collection and the album set up by the photographer himself and held at the New York Library. The photographs in Trilhos na selva O dia a dia dos trabalhadores da ferrovia Madeira Mamoré are largely by Merrill they are reproductions of already known images, slight variations of those and, of course, unpublished ones. The book also reproduces pages from the Marconigram, and gives prominence to the poems the newspaper used to publish some of surprising quality. With this material, the authors portrait a touching and profoundly humane picture of the daily life of characters who, cast into the heart of the forest, took place in one of the most dramatic adventures in contemporary history..