Barão

ABSTRACT
Our research seeks to explain the reasons that led Ribeirão Preto, a rural community, to
rapidly become a modern city, full of anxiety by all new things. Ribeirão Preto was known, in the Belle
Époque period, as Petit Paris, due to the ‗European reality‘ inserted in the consumist ways by the elite
people. The candy shops, the fashion and the automobiles are a few examples. Who would be
responsible for these changes? Was it the arrival of industries around 1911, or the coffee barons who
supported the growing commerce? Another point of reference were some modernizing aspects being
introduced, like the radio, the cinema, the night entertainment, the written press, the football among
others introduced by the coffee producing elite.
Keywords: urbanization, modernity, Belle Époque.