Christ the Redeemer was a 1920s Catholic campaign that took nine years to build in concrete

historyWikipedia1850s–1931 · Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Christ the Redeemer was a 1920s Catholic campaign that took nine years to build in concrete

the gist

A Catholic priest first proposed a Christian monument on Mount Corcovado in the 1850s, but Brazil's 1889 move to a republic with separated church and state shelved the plan. In 1920 the Catholic Circle of Rio revived it with a Monument Week of donations and signatures, motivated by what they saw as Godlessness in society. The design with open arms, a symbol of peace, was chosen, and it was built in reinforced concrete from 1922 to 1931. The statue opened on 12 October 1931.

how it works

The statue is built from reinforced concrete with soapstone outer layers. Engineers chose concrete because the cross-shaped form was better suited to it than steel.

so what

The statue became one of the most recognised religious monuments in the world, drawing tourists to Rio. Its concrete structure was chosen over steel because it suited the cross-shaped design better, and the outer layers are soapstone chosen for durability.

the bigger pattern

Large religious monuments on hilltops, such as Italy's Redeemer statues, often began as public fundraising campaigns, which shaped their design and funding.

fun fact

Guglielmo Marconi was supposed to switch on the floodlights remotely from Rome, but bad weather meant they were lit on site.

D. W. Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat (1909)

the gist

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.

how it works

To corner a market, a trader buys up most of the available supply and the futures contracts that promise more. Anyone who has to deliver the commodity must then buy from the cornerer at whatever price is demanded. The trader profits until the stock is released or the scheme collapses.

so what

A century on, it still shows how markets can be rigged by someone who controls supply, and how the people at either end, farmers and eaters, pay for it. It also helped establish editing as a way to argue a point, not just tell a story.

the bigger pattern

Corners have recurred whenever supply could be locked up, from the Hunt brothers' attempt on silver in 1979 to 1980 to the 'Black Friday' gold panic of 1869. Many such schemes end by collapsing, and the response is often new rules on speculation.

fun fact

In the film the Wheat King dies by falling into a grain elevator and being buried in the wheat he hoarded, an ending borrowed from Norris's novel The Octopus.

more on this

background

A Corner in Wheat is a 1909 American short silent film which tells of a greedy tycoon who tries to corner the market in wheat, destroying the lives of the people who can no longer afford to buy bread. It was directed by D. W. Griffith and adapted by Griffith and Frank E. Woods from a novel and a short story by Frank Norris, titled The Pit and "A Deal in Wheat". Griffith may have had a real-life inspiration: six months earlier, James A. Patten had actually cornered the market in wheat, and in some cities, the price of bread doubled from five cents to ten, just as in the movie.

In 1994, A Corner in Wheat was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

From Wikipedia: A Corner in Wheat (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗

see

D. W. Griffith, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

G. W. Bitzer (cinematographer) under employment of the Biog…, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

DS Pugh, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Image: The Public Domain Review

source: The Public Domain Review ↗

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