Press Crimes in São Paulo’s Courts of Justice (1859-1935)

Abstract For about a century, between the enactment of the Criminal Code in 1830 and the Decree no. 24,776 of July 14, 1934, the Lawsuits of Autographs’ were preparatory lawsuits that preceded the filing of libel and slander court cases. Consequently, based on a series of these proceedings judged in the counties of Campinas and Bragança, between 1859 and 1935, this article analyzes the impact of the expansion of the typographic mesh in São Paulo’s state countryside, attentive to the transformations imposed by the arrival of presses and newspapers in the daily lives of men and women alike. Therefore, in addition to analyzing the reading practices in societies marked by significant illiteracy rates, the research investigates the nexus between print and legal culture in Brazil at a time when the new constitutional regimes of the 19th century had to deal with the control and legal regulation of print production and circulation.