In Brazilian society, in the late nineteenth century, the conflicting correlation of forces that supported the power bloc went on to demonstrate the loss of ability to intellectual formulations capable of articulating reforms compatible with the historic moment. In general, engineers started to work as technicians and as leaders in railway companies, whose particular function articulated the interests of the agro-export complex fractions of certain regions of the country. Thus, we believe we can explain how the projects related to railways unfolded in order to extrapolate the civil society towards the political society, revealing thus the process of expansion of the Brazilian state.
railroads; history of engineering; nineteenth-century Brazil; Second Empire; history of technology
