In this paper, we analyze, within the context of modernity, the period between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century in São Paulo. More precisely, the early days of the Republic, when a process of hygiene and 'social cleansing' took place, which was associated with poverty, and, at the same time, with a utopian desire for a clean and healthy city as an ideology of elites.
Hygiene; Utopia; Poverty; Ideology; Civility