Edgar Roquette-Pinto (September 25, 1884 – October 18, 1954) was a Brazilian writer, ethnologist, anthropologist and physician. He was a member of the
Academia Brasileira de Letras and is regarded as the father of
radio broadcasting
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...
in Brazil.
Life
Roquette-Pinto was born in
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...
in 1884. He graduated in medicine at the
Faculdade de Medicina do Rio de Janeiro in 1905. Roquette-Pinto became assistant of Anthropology at the
National Museum in Rio de Janeiro (1906).
In 1912 Roquette-Pinto went on an expedition to
Rondônia and lived for some time with the
Nambikwara people, which until then were virtually
uncontacted. He collected extensive ethnographic material and published them in the book ''Rondonia'' (1916),
which became a classic of anthropological literature of Brazil.
In 1926 he became director of the National Museum and began building the largest collection of scientific documentaries in Brazil.
First radio broadcast in Brazil
On September 7, 1922, for the
Independence Centenary International Exposition
The Independence Centenary International Exposition ( pt, Exposição Internacional do Centenário da Independência) was a World Expo held in Rio de Janeiro from September 7, 1922 to March 23, 1923, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Brazil' ...
, American technicians from
Westinghouse installed a radio antenna atop the
Corcovado
Corcovado (korcovádo) which means "hunchback" in Portuguese, is a mountain in central Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is a 710-metre (2,329 ft) granite peak located in the Tijuca Forest, a national park.
Corcovado hill lies just west of the c ...
mountain, to present the technology to Brazil. The first transmission in Brazil was a speech of president
Epitácio Pessoa
Epitácio Lindolfo da Silva Pessoa (; 23 May 1865 – 13 February 1942) was a Brazilian politician and jurist who served as 11th president of Brazil between 1919 and 1922, when Rodrigues Alves was unable to take office due to illness, after bein ...
.
Roquette-Pinto, envisioning the radio potential for educational uses, convinced the
Brazilian Academy of Sciences
The Brazilian Academy of Sciences ( pt, italic=yes, Academia Brasileira de Ciências or ''ABC'') is the national academy of Brazil. It is headquartered in the city of Rio de Janeiro and was founded on May 3, 1916.
Publications
It publishes a lar ...
to purchase the equipment. Still in 1922 the first radio station in Brazil was founded, the
Rádio Sociedade do Rio de Janeiro. Roquette-Pinto became its first director.
In 1936, Roquette-Pinto donated the station to the Brazilian government; Radio Sociedade became Rádio MES, then Rádio MEC.
See also
*
Troféu Roquette Pinto
References
External links
Profile on Academia Brasileira de Letras website(in Portuguese)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roquette-Pinto, Edgar
Brazilian male writers
Brazilian medical writers
Brazilian anthropologists
Radio in Brazil
1884 births
1954 deaths
Writers from Rio de Janeiro (city)
Brazilian Academy of Letters
National Museum of Brazil
20th-century anthropologists
Officers of the Order of the White Lion