A team of researchers from the University of Göttingen (Germany) and Centro de Memória da UNICAMP (Brazil) have focused on digitizing a collection of historical archives containing records belonging to Farm Ibicaba. These records include administrative manuscripts, printed publications, accounting documents, and more-- all dating from the 1890’s to the 1970’s. Through the team’s digitization work, these materials will help in expanding knowledge on the socioeconomic, cultural, and political dynamics within Latin American plantations. The content revolves around the farm’s administration, daily life, and economic production. The accounting books, for instance, include information about laborers’ daily activities, productivity under various contracts, workers’ remunerations, and livelihoods. Such content will present a part of history of both Brazilians and immigrant workers of various nationalities. This is especially valuable to any descendants of the farm workers who seek to explore their ancestry. As early as the 1840’s, Farm Ibicaba introduced immigrant labor to work alongside slave labor in the coffee plantations-- an experiment which soon gained traction across other plantations in São Paulo. This caused some lasting consequences for the regional economy and society. The farm’s administrative documents record this big shift. With this collection, users will be able to better analyze a specific case of labor administration and how various roles came into play in this setting. The manuscripts are of academic value for various research branches, including labor history; economics of contractual design; sociology of immigration; political history of labor and immigration to Brazil; and cultural life in a plantation-based society following the transition from slavery. Making these manuscripts available online will not only preserve the historical content of an endangered archive but will also democratize the access to this type of information.

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