Rio was the center of the Brazilian government, and was therefore constantly drawing in the elite thinkers of the time, attracted to its buzzing intellectual epicenter, Between 1870 and 1920 Rio was home to the nation's most significant writers - this period coincided with the inception and development of the Brazilian press, and these thinkers played an incisive role in the media content that was disseminated to the wider public. Famous writers, such as Machado de Assis, were regular columnists for these early periodicals.

The press and wider forms of literature, such as letters, chronicles, poetry and novels, were therefore in constant dialogue with one another, working together to form a conceptual and literary representation of Rio de Janeiro, that ran parallel to the experience of the city.