The Brazilian Photographs of Genevieve Naylor, 1940-1942

In the early 1940s, as the conflict between the Axis and the Allies spread worldwide, the U.S. State Department turned its attention to Axis influence in Latin America. To cultivate the region's support for the Allies while portraying Brazil and its neighbors as dependable wartime partners, the State Department created the Office of Inter-American Affairs, with Nelson Rockefeller in charge. Genevieve Naylor, a photojournalist previously employed by the Associated Press and the WPA, was sent to Brazil in 1940 by Rockefeller's agency to provide photographs for propaganda. Often balking at her mundane assignments, an independent-minded Naylor produced something far different and far more rich - a stunning collection of over a thousand images that document a rarely seen period in Brazilian history. Accompanied by analysis from Robert M. Levine, this selection of Naylor's photographs offers a unique view of everyday life during one of modern Brazil's least-examined decades.