Touring Tradition: Bahian Tourist Guides of the 1940s and 50s

With the end of World War II Bahia found itself in a precarious economic position. Economic stagnation was nothing new, but the post-war period did attract new efforts to pull Bahia out of its sugar decadence. One intriguing element in this larger initiative was attention to tourism as a potential engine of growth. Both the state and leading intellectuals advocated a new focus on tourism beginning in the second half of the 1940s and continuing through the 1950s. This endeavor sparked a burst of energy for authors who turned themselves to the genre of tourist guide. This genre became a core component in larger cultural movements that emphasized Bahian traditions, yet have never attracted focused attention. This paper analyzes the genre of tourist guides during this time. It examines the emphasis on tradition and unravels the way the state and intellectuals conceived of tradition at a moment in which modernizing fever began to drive the policies of Brazil as a whole.