João Ricardo da Camara Chaves

Music

Fado Moves to Theatre Stages

During the 1930s and 1940s, fado singers like Hermínia Silva gained fame performing on theatre stages, moving fado from its origins in taverns and streets to broader audiences.

At the table

Wartime Rationing and Factory Meals

During the 1940s, food scarcity led to the rationing of essential goods like cod, olive oil, and sugar using quarterly coupon booklets. Workers often brought their own meals in aluminum lunchboxes to the factory, heating them with alcohol kept in shoe polish tins.

News and letters

Radio usage under censorship and scarcity

Many Portuguese made personal sacrifices to access radio, which was essential for news due to strict censorship of the press.

What people wore

Barretes used as storage

Fishermen used their wool hats, known as 'barretes', as practical storage for tobacco, cigarette rolling papers, and matches.

Daily life

Lack of Basic Infrastructure in Homes

In rural areas, many homes lacked running water, electricity, and toilets, with families often using basic holes in the ground for sewage. Cooking typically occurred on floor-level fires without chimneys, leaving walls blackened by smoke.

Work

Grueling shifts from dawn to dusk

Agricultural laborers in the Alentejo often worked from dawn until dusk, sometimes surviving on less than four hours of sleep. Children and adults alike would walk many miles to the fields, rising at five in the morning to begin their grueling shifts.